The Great War part one: The early years
by Aussie Mantis
Summary: a story aiming to capture war in a realistic fashion- and the people fighting in it at their best and worst. rated T for some coarse language and war themes.
1. Foreword to Part I

2104-2105: The First Years

Volume One of the Written History of the Great Intergalactic War

Encompasses Coalition Galaxy-wide Total War Protocol Phase One.

A transcription of diary entries, and interviews with Corporal Daniel 'Chatterin' Dan' Raleigh, M.I.D., D.S.O., M.H., Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves, Sakura and Rubies. Squadron Leader Richard 'Ricky-tick' Raleigh, D.S.O., Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves and Sakura, M.H., Order of the Federation, 1st class, Silver Star. Squadron Leader Frederick 'Flaming Freddy' Raleigh, Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves, Sakura and Rubies, D.S.O., Silver Star News reports written by Andrew 'Dandy Andy' Raleigh.

To veterans, past, present and future.

Coalition War Protocol: Phase One

Translated from captured documents captured after the war

Throughout the History of the Great Galactic Coalition of Civilised Life, Phase One has not differed. It has remained the same, from the Annexation of the Temple Planets* or the famed invasion of Atilan. The first protocol is to establish total airspace and space control. All lanes in and out must be secured. No ship must be able to get in or out. Normally, this can be achieved through covert methods. _Geth_ -class boarding pods may be used to hijack enemy space assets, and orbital driller pods should be used to establish an initial foothold on the planet.

The next step is the Covert Raiding** step. In said phase candidates for Shadowplay*** should be analysed. Candidates may include civilians or military members. Preferably those in positions of power, or those with access to resources.

After sufficient resources have been amassed and initial construction has been completed, heavy dropships should be sent in. they should have self-building contained assembly units with them. These devices should be used to build up numbers for a full assault. Enough equipment should be made so that twelve army groups, with two field armies (totalling 160000 combat soldiers each) and two maintenance corps in each group, can be deployed at one time, with three army groups acting as the initial striking power, and four more being deployed in the later stages of the battle. Five army groups act as reserves and fresh units that are ready to be rotated into the combat zone, replacing the active combat unit which is rotated back to reserve duty every half-year+. units should be slowly replaced, one by one, so that all units have been returned to reserve, and have been replaced by fresh units in one-eighth. The first to be replaced should be rear-guard units. This should be achieved with strategic airlifts or through tunnel systems. Then, the fresh troops are brought to the front, preferably with tunnels, but road transport or airlifts are acceptable if aerospace superiority has been established. The frontline soldiers are rotated into the rear, until they are completely replaced by fresh troops.

Tunnels should be fifteen metres wide and ten metres high, wide enough to let a tank or IFV pass through. One tank with a column of infantry soldiers, or alternatively, one IFV and a full column of infantry, should pass through. Tests show that 2 cubits++ of tanks and 36 cubits of soldiers can pass through in one hour, and frontline reports state that higher numbers can be achieved.

The IFV of choice is the EóR+++-17, armed with 9A5 rifled autocannon with a bore of 3 kulleya*+, which can effectively penetrate up to 11/2 kulleya of armour. The MBT of choice is the MA-02. It is armed with a main gun which can penetrate 19 kulleya of armor.

As experience on multiple worlds has shown, these tactics, if correctly applied, can lead to a quick and easy takeover of a planet.

Translator's notes

* The Rigel IV system

** Kulâó Óropínáh, lit. Secret Invasion

*** process for creation of sleeper agents (Páìh otaït, lit. Darkness)

\+ around one earth year  
++ one cubit = six things (base six measuring/counting system used)

+++ Êóla Rúlóâ lit. troop crawler

*+ around 18mm

**+ around 22.8cm

The Beginning

The Draft Office was quite dusty, and the air reeked of cigarettes. Everything was stained brown. The walls, the faded posters and even the floor. Rick looked over everyone. Dan, the youngest, was sitting on the left. Freddy, the middle child, was to the right.

The year was 2104.

It was fourteen years since the start of the rebellion on the frontier colonies. It was still flaring strong, and wouldn't die down until the end of the year, when the all-out offensive by the Coalition started and the Rebellion called for a truce.

It was four years since the initial attacks made by the Coalition on Earth, in 2100.

And during the dark time that was 2104, the Federation was as war.

And as any parent who sent their children off to war would know, wars are hungry beasts that are always hungry for more.

More men.

More weapons.

More resources.

More death.

"Daniel Raleigh," a mechanical voice said. "Your session is ready."

Suddenly, the wooden bench feels very, very hard. My breathing quickens.

Dan rises, opens a metal door and then enters. The door locks itself.

"Are you enlisting for the army, air force or the navy, Fred?" Rick asked.

"Rick, I couldn't care less. I'm signing for air force." He replied.

"Me too." Rick replied. "Gonna fly one of them gunships, go wreck some tanks."

Andrew shook his head.

"You won't make it to gunships." he said. "Your hand-eye co-ordination is crap. You wouldn't even be able to catch a gym ball if it was flying at yer face!"

"Pessimist," Freddy snorted.

"Coming from the person who said that we would be dead after eight months at the front, that isn't worth much," Rick snapped back. Fred opened his mouth to say a witty comeback, but found that there was (and still is!) no comeback worthwhile enough.

They graduated from the most prestigious school in the galaxy: The Turia Grammar School for boys. Dan broke the running record for the school- the longest sustained run of the courtyard. He lasted one hour, forty-four minutes and fifty-eight-point nought-nine-three seconds, or fifteen laps, beating the previous record holder by twenty minutes. Fred was the dux in bio. Rick was the star of the class pageant. I was the dux in philosophy. Once I graduated, I took a gap year. I was waiting for my siblings to graduate. All of you graduated with honours, and you planned to go to college. Then, the dreaded yellow letter arrived in my mailbox, and it said that Dan, the youngest out of you three, had been selected for the draft for the army.

The boys still remember that day. The four brothers were sitting at the round table, ready for dinner, and their mother was in the kitchen. Then their dad came back from work. The hall door opened and closed, then his footsteps echoed down the hallway. He was walking much slower than usual. When he turned into the dining room from the hall, Andrew was horrified by the look of pure fear that was in his face. Dan thought that he had received a death threat or threatening message. They didn't know how much worse it was. He was carrying a yellow envelope. He stood there, unmoving, just holding that yellow envelope. My mother entered the dining room.

"Hello honey, what's that?" she asked, carrying a saucepan full of soup.

Their father did not answer. He handed the envelope to Dan with trembling hands.

Dan and Freddy peered at the envelope, wondering what it was about. Their father had already opened it, so a piece of white paper was sticking out. Dan took the piece of white paper out.

Fred read it and cursed loudly, and was told by mother not to use such language.

Dan stared at it for thirty seconds, then asked father, "Is this for real?"

He replied, "Yes, it is. I'm so, so sorry."

Dan didn't say anything. Then, he swore, tore up the letter, and stormed up the stairs, followed by Freddy.

"What got them so angry?" asked mother.

My father turned his head slowly, and faced my mother. His face was full.

"Draft notice. Dan has been drafted into the army, and is to report to the draft office tomorrow." My father replied. "God help his soul."

The saucepan clattered on the floor, spraying hot soup everywhere.

Eventually, all four of them would volunteer, in the hopes that they would be in the same unit.

When Andrew, Rick and Freddy told their decision to volunteer, he simply nodded slightly, and wished you luck. It seemed like he knew it was inevitable that you would go to war.

"Rick Raleigh," the mechanical voice said. "Your session is ready."

Rick got up. Freddy muttered something incomprehensible.

Rick walked the five meters towards the door. he breathed shakily. The door was cast-iron, made to open from the outside. It was devoid of decoration. It simply had a handle. No lock, no doorknob, nothing.

 _Well, I've got nothing to lose,_ he thought, and he made the decision to open the door.

His hand moved forward, and it trembled with fear.

His brain seemed to scream, 'Don't do it!'

But he did.

He opened the door.

He opened it, and entered the darkness within.

Eventually, all four of them opened that door and walked into the mouth of the beast called War.

None of them believed that any of them had come out completely the same again.

Blood, sweat, and fiery hell- Dan

Heat. Light. Agony.

Dan crawled away from the heat. Away from the smell of smoke and napalm. Nothing mattered then except survival.

 _Is this death?_ he wondered.

Agony. Fear. Darkness.

Blood ran down his face as he dragged himself and his injured leg away from the heat and the acrid smoke. My back felt as if it is on fire.

Darkness. Cold. Fear.

Dan dragged himself further into the forest. Nothing mattered but survival.

Darkness…

He realised it was so, very, very dark. He could see the faint outlines of trees. The ground was littered with dead leaves and twigs. What happened on the first day of the practice mission? What happened was very simple. His APC was sabotaged, and rigged to explode. Dan was standing next to it at the time, and thus got flung sideways.

Damn Saboteurs, Dan thought as he lay there, in the forest. I'd heard stories of boot camps on other planets being sabotaged. They never did get as far as Turia though. There was occasionally a terrorist attack in the big cities, but never a sabotage of an actual military exercise.

He took stock of the situation. He'd lost his machine gun, but his pistol was still strapped to his side. He had six frag grenades hanging on one side of his belt, and two smoke grenades.

Dan decided to pop a smoke grenade from his pocket. His radio was destroyed, so it wouldn't be of any use. Anyhow, he later found out that the destroyed APC filled the airwaves with chatter, so he couldn't have gotten a message through to HQ. You pop red smoke. There was nothing else to do, so Dan decided to reflect on what had happened so far. The gruelling physical training, and the devil-like instructors. One recruit suffered a mental breakdown during training. He had to be taken away by ambulance, while strapped firmly to a stretcher. Three were weeded out due to failing their physical training. One person committed suicide for some reason. And it had only been a week ago. His name was Bletchley. Hamish Montgomery Bletchley. He was a nice person, and he performed satisfactorily during his physical.

The incidents leading up to his suicide started from his first major screw-up after going through the obstacle course one day. It turned out that he'd lost his dog-tags somehow. Dan and his comrades, including Bletchley, spent hours looking for them. These kinds of screw-ups happened often with Bletchley, and it was not uncommon to see him going to the Replacement Office to get new equipment, clothing or more of something. Stuff just kept disappearing. Then, the instructor got mad. He decided that every time Bletchley lost something, the entire squad would have to suffer- except Bletchley, and the punishment would double every single time he lost another thing. The first time, it was 10 slow push-ups. Then, it increased to twenty. Then forty. By the time the amount reached one hundred, the squad got sick, and decided that they were going to punish Bletchley on their own. Poor kid got beaten up by the rest of the squad. Dan protested, but then they threatened to beat him up as well, so he just shut his mouth.

They forced him to watch while they gagged Bletchley and just beat the living daylights out of him.

They just beat him with rifles and metal bars and soap wrapped in socks and god knows what else.

Later, he would state that he could still remember the sickening crunch as they broke his nose, and seeing blood spurt everywhere. He can still remember hearing his muffled screams and shouts of pain. Poor kid.

Bletchley was never the same again. Sure, he didn't lose anything, and he became the model soldier, and was praised by the drill instructors, but he was… affected by the beating.

Strange things started happening to him. He stopped eating as much, and he started showing signs of a breakdown. He talked in his sleep. He started talking to his rifle. He also became more withdrawn. After we were moved into divisional barracks, he would sleep away from everyone else. He would sleep at the end of the room, where no-one else was.

Then, one day, when the division was supposed to be asleep, he got up, and went into the bathroom, carrying his rifle. Then, he loudly shouted the Federation Army's marching song. He loaded live ammunition into it. He cleaned it, and then it happened.

The drill instructor entered the room. He said that he would put Bletchley on fatigue duty for the next month if he didn't shut up. Then, Bletchley came out of the bathroom carrying the rifle. The drill instructor ordered him to surrender the rifle and put his hands in the air, and he shouted for the MPs. Bletchley didn't falter. He walked into the middle of the room, raised the rifle and simply shot the instructor in the head. He must have loaded a high-explosive round or a canister round, because it literally blew the instructor's head off. Then, he shot himself. He did all this when everyone in the room was wide awake.

Everyone saw their heads getting blown apart.

Everyone saw the blood spurting everywhere.

Everyone was covered in viscera, be it blood or bits of brain or eyes. One person got a shard of a tooth in his arm.

Everyone was horrified by what Bletchley did.

It was found that some members of another squad had stolen Bletchley's belongings, then had put them back in his quarters because they wanted to fool around.

They got a court-martial, but were acquitted.

Even more horrible was the speed at which the corpses were disposed of. The next morning, the corpses and the bloodstains were gone.

There was a funeral for the drill sergeant, but not Bletchley for some reason. Dan assumed that his remains had been taken back to his home for burial there.

To this day, Dan still wonders, why did he kill himself? Why did he blow his own head off when he was doing well in the course? If he hadn't killed himself, would he have been a good soldier?

And now, after 32 years of war, would he still have been alive?

Dan then heard an APC trundle up, breaking the tranquil silence of the forest.

"Who popped smoke?" someone shouted.

"Me…" Dan croaked, weakly.

"Where are you?" the person asked.

"Here!" Dan shouted. "Underneath a tree with a u-shaped trunk!"

A man's head broke through the undergrowth. Thankfully, it wasn't a terrorist, but the face of Sergeant Park.

"What the hell happened to you?" he asked. "Your back is a mess!"

"APC blew up. Shrapnel." Dan replied weakly. He tried to stand, but collapsed, exhausted, pitching head-first into a pile of leaves.

 _At least it wasn't a rock..._ he thought.

He'd never felt so weak, and his back still burned with pain. Dan felt cold. He thought it was odd, because he'd been lying down in the sun a few seconds ago. Dan had never felt cold on Turia, where the seasons are always over 20 degrees Celsius. His leg felt numb. He heard the sarge shout for a stretcher and a medic, and people thrashing through the undergrowth, and other indiscernible shouts. Then, Dan lost consciousness.

The beginning of hell- Freddy

He woke up inside the C-21 as it approached the Forward Airbase at the front lines. Anti-Aircraft fire buffeted the aircraft. Fred could see white lines of tracer and black smudges in the sky outside the window- this was his first experience with anti-aircraft fire during the day, but not the last. The plane's turbines roared loudly, and made the aircraft shake. Outside, he could see the green, rolling plains, and the dark green coral forests of Atilan.

He couldn't believe that he was there, on Atilan. I can't believe that you survived the training camp on Turia (which, according to a letter sent by Dan, was 'soft' and 'was absolutely nothing compared to what we went through') and getting so many operations and injections. It is inconceivable that the entire training process took less than a month due to the simulations they put you through. He couldn't believe that my aging process was slowed, and it was even harder so to believe that he'd qualified to fly a gunship.

It was hardest to believe that he had reached Atilan, seventy-five light-years away from Turia, in one hour. One hour! Five minutes to board, fifteen minutes to get into the atmosphere, fifteen minutes getting through the warp relay, twenty minutes re-entering the atmosphere of Atilan, and five minutes to disembark after you arrived.

Looks like the veterans were right. The planet's day lasts for four earth years, so on one side, it rains perpetually and is very dark, and on the other, it is bright and sunny. And dry. The dust gets everywhere, in your gun and in the air. And when the officials come over it gets into their suits. To put it in the views of John Smith, a Stormbringer super-soldier sent here five years ago, at the beginning of the war in 2100, the Federation ruled the day, but the Coalition ruled the night. And indeed, it was. Thankfully, Fred had been deployed on the side where it was still day.

The intercom turns on.

"Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are on flight U.R. Deadmeat from The World to Hell. We are on final approach to Hell, so say your last-minute prayers, wet your pants, stow your belongings, and do whatever the hell greenies like you fellows need to get prepared for my two-year stay at the Hotel Death." The pilot said. "When we touch down, get out immediately or you may find your body parts scattered across the runway, courtesy of our friendly hosts, Mr Eighty-Deuce, Mrs Quad Thirty and their delightful son, Sammy the Surface-to-Air Missile."

"Well, he's an optimist, isn't he?" Fred told Rick.

He remains silent.

"Come on, Close Support isn't that bad. You can still wreck some tanks, and you fly the same aircraft as I do! A gunship! What you wanted! You don't have to lug twenty kays of crap around!"

"You really don't understand, do you?" he said, with a blank expression.

A shell burst close by, making the plane rock.

"Understand what?" he asked.

"I wanted to get into gunships to protect Danny." He replied. "I wanted to make sure that he gets through this goddamn hell. I want to see him live, have children and die peacefully with a loving family, not after being disembowelled by some Coalition creep. I want at least one of us to get back to momma alive and well, even after fighting a war that will taint our souls, and rip our innocence away from us. Now, he's on some hellhole a thousand light-years from here."

"Oh. I didn't know that. Sorry."

The plane's big rear door opened.

Something buzzed, and a light turned from red to green.

A sergeant stood at the door.

"Alright, people!" he shouted over the wind. "We are approaching the destination under heavy fire! The instant the plane stops, I want you out that door! The more time we spend here, the more chance there is that the plane gets fragged! I have a wife and three children to get back to, so move out quickly!"

The plane approached a runway which Fred could see outside the window. Harsh sunlight pierced the last remnants of his sleepiness. Anti-aircraft shells burst outside.

The plane touched down on the runway. It bumped once, twice, then stopped.

The sergeant ran to the door.

"Go, go, go! Get out of here before they zero in on us!" the sergeant screamed.

Everyone scrambled out the door. You follow, but you trip over something on the floor of the plane. A loose M-10 rifle clip.

"What do you think you're doing?" the sergeant shouted. "Get out of here now, before the mortar fire hits-"

Fred still remembered this moment, thirty-nine years later. To him, that hit from a mortar was the most powerful thing he had ever seen. Time seemed to slow down as he scrambled out the door. A black… thing dropped from the sky, screaming like a devil from the darkest depths of hell. The sergeant looked at him with a blank expression. He leaped out and scrambled away, just before an explosion rocked the plane. The left wall of the plane literally tore itself apart. Then, the right wall disintegrated into a million pieces. Fred felt himself being flung to the right.

When his vision cleared, he got up and looked around at what happened to the plane. The aluminium-carbon-plastic composite skin has been shredded. There was a crater in the ground, and burning petroleum was strewn everywhere. _Where had the sergeant gone?_ He thought.

Fred couldn't see him.

Then Fred saw the sergeant.

Or rather, what was left of him.

What remains of him is under a large piece of shrapnel.

He was breathing laboriously.

"Huhh… You… damn idiot…" he gasped with his last breaths. "My… wife… needs… me… I… you…"

His voice faded, and a strange look came into his eyes. His eyes seemingly glazed over with glass film, and he died with a strange, fixed expression, his facial muscles contorted with pain. Fred was then conscious of someone's arm on my shoulder.

"He's dead, son," the person said. His English was accented. Perhaps he was from one of the Rusbloc colonies? Within the four years you knew him before your transfer you never really got to know him.

"At least he's gone to a better place than this," The man said, continuing.

The mortar fire has moved on, and now some explosions can be heard a long distance away, near the perimeter.

"Who're you?" Fred asked the man.

"Captain Edward Yellin, but just call me Edward. 15th Aerial Hussars, or the Slavic Death squadron" he replied. The look of utter confusion on Fred's face led him to give a more conventional name. "15th Army Support."

"Pilot Officer Freddy Raleigh. Assigned to 15th Army Support."

"Well then. You have a brother who goes by the name of Richard, correct?"

"Yes. Everybody calls him Rick. As a matter of fact, where is he? He ran off during the bombardment."

"Ah. Yes. He went to the mess. Come with me to the mess. We have a little time before my first mission's briefing. Which is in…"

Edward checks his watch. He seemed strangely relaxed for a man standing in the middle of a warzone, with mortar shells screaming down, and the scorched remains of a plane around him.

"Thirty minutes," he said emphatically. "Chop-chop. Let's go get ourselves a drink."

And so, Fred's first day of war began. Unfortunately, this would not be the last day. This was simply the beginning of hell…

Saying Hello to the Devils- Richard

In the briefing room, Rick sat in the second row from the front. His hands were twitching nervously. He remembers how I told him not to be afraid, but, well, he couldn't help but quiver in anticipation for his first combat operation.

"Listen up, ladies and gentlemen!" the C.O. shouted. "Most of you are new here, except for those of you in the Slavic Death Squadron."

When he was met with confused faces, he elaborated.

"15th army co-operation, or at least what remains of it after their most recent mission,"

He continued, pacing around the podium.

"So, that should be Andrei, Edward, Sofia, Natasha, Hans and Grisha."

His words were met with slow nods from six people in the first row.

"As you should know, we have several squadrons based here. Four, to be exact."

A hand shoots up.

"Sir, if there are four squadrons, why are there only six people who are experienced?"

The colonel nodded. "Good question. This is because of our overwhelming losses in the last month. As you may know, our base is near an important choke point for Coalition convoys entering and exiting this region. Our job is to interdict those convoys, and destroy them. Unfortunately, we have been suffering heavy losses due to missile emplacements and better anti-aircraft defences used by the enemy. We cannot afford to pull out of this area. If we withdraw, enemy forces will pour into this area and retake our recent gains in the area."

Rick's hand shoots up.

"What aircraft are we flying, sir?" he asked.

"I was getting to that." The colonel replied. "You will be flying the AH-98D Cobra V. The helicopter has contra-rotating propellers, and no tail rotor. This means that you can take hits in the tail unit and get out alive, but it does not mean that you are invincible. There is no armour on the 'D' variant. From what I have heard, the 'E' variant has plenty of armour and better guns, but handles like a heavy tank. It moves like a tortoise, but turns relatively tightly, in a small radius due to the nature of the contra-rotating rotors. It is equipped with dual 30mm cannons. Unlike the 'E' variant, the cannons are mounted in the nose, and are flexible. You will be using high-explosive incendiary armour-piercing rounds. Don't asked me how they work, because I don't know. The only thing I know is that they can turn a brand-new tank into a smouldering wreck within ten rounds, or a one-second burst, if you are bang on target on the turret, or hit the fuel tanks. You will have 150 rounds per gun, meaning that you have thirty seconds worth of firing. Regarding the guns, the advice is to fire by tapping the firing button, and not to hold it, since holding it will simply expend my ammunition before you can properly utilise it. My guns will be complemented by eight air-to-ground guided missiles, but people tend not to use them, since the tanks and vehicles used by the enemy have a wide array of countermeasures. These days, we use them as anti-personnel weapons by converting them to cluster bombs. If you want to know how, asked my ground crew, I ain't got time for that."

The pilots and gunners yawn, bored. You can't help but yawn while you listen to the colonel drone on.

"You will also have a full load of 80 rockets, optimised as anti-personnel rounds. They are equipped with HE warheads, so they are ineffective against tanks and bunkers, and other heavily armoured targets,"

"Is that all, sir?" someone in the back row asked, bored.

"No. Today," the colonel said, taking a pointer, "You will be accompanying our infantry on a mission, and provide close-air support along with the jets. Your aircraft have enough fuel for six hours, but there are constant tanker flights coming in, so you have an effectively unlimited loiter time. You are only limited by the amount of damage you take and your endurance."

The pointer hit a point on the large map behind the podium.

"Nal'irathika. Biggest coalition stronghold in the area, and a major supply depot for the Coalition," the colonel said. The remainders of the 15th shift uncomfortably in their seats. "The 15th Army Co-operation has been near this place before, on their previous mission. The 18th, 26th and 33rd Army Co-operation squadrons were wiped out here, and you stand a good chance of being wiped out too. From what I have heard, there are several dangers associated with the area. These include enemy fighter cover, heavy fire from flak and many, many missiles. These enemy soldiers are not human. They are aliens. They are thirsty for our blood, and will do absolutely anything to kill us. To them, we are the alien invaders. To them, we have come from space to defile their territory. I am sure you'd think that too, if a bunch of aliens came to your homeworld and started killing everybody."

The colonel stops, and looks around the room.

"Ok. Remember the radio call-signs of the infantry and the supporting forces. The controller's callsign is Bison five-oh-three. your radio callsign is Kestrel-202. The callsign of the 113th Cavalry, who are the tanks, is Bronco one-thirteen. The callsign of the 16th mechanized infantry, the grunts attacking the compound, is Puma sixteen. The callsign of the escorting fighters is Eagle three-oh-four. The callsign of the fighters assigned to ground attack is Hawk Eleven-sixteen. The callsigns for the other helicopter squadrons are Helix one-five and Alligator one-seventeen. The airspace will be crowded, because there will be a total of one hundred and forty-four helicopters operating in the area. Understood?"

"Yes sir," the pilots groaned.

"Alright. Remember: this isn't a one-hour training flight. If my helicopter seems even slightly off, then turn back. If there is a problem, a slight one like a dial not displaying properly, or a serious one like engine power loss of more than 20%, turn back. If you don't think that you can stay awake and well enough to do an entire seven-hour shift, then turn back."

The colonel puts the pointer down.

"Now get to the choppers." The colonel said. "God speed."

A few minutes later, Rick found himself whisked out into the airfield. Jets, or fast-movers as the more experienced people called them, were taking off from the airfield as he walked towards his helicopter. Fifteen Amphyrades, an entire squadron, were taxiing out to the runway. Their dual engines roared and spat streams of smoke as they took off, laden with bombs, missiles and rocket pods. A larger cargo aircraft came in to land at another runway. The airfield is a flurry of activity, with ammunition, bombs and missiles being carted everywhere. It ranges from rocket pods and High-Explosive Incendiary Armour Piercing (HEIAP) rounds and cluster munitions for Cobra gunships to racks of 500-pound bombs for the B-16 Swallows stationed at the base.

Rick walked across the base. The sky is blue, and there isn't a cloud anywhere. This was both good and bad. It meant that he could see ground targets clearly, but he would have nowhere to hide in the case of an attack. A tousle-headed fitter stood by his helicopter. Freddy is already there, in front of the helicopter.

"Freddy? What're you doing here? Get to your own helicopter!" Rick shouted.

"Idiot. Did you even read the list of pilot and gunner pairs in the mess?" he said calmly, while inspecting a belt filled with HEIAP ammunition. "Well, mother said that you never really liked reading. I guess that's true."

"Bloody he-" Rick's protest is cut short by Freddy.

"Anyhow, we've been posted together," he continues. "Deal with it. If you want to complain, te-."

"Whatever," Rick groaned, cutting off Freddy. "Just pilot the darn kite without crashing it, and I'll be a happy man. Let's get going."

About twenty minutes later, you and Freddy are in the air, flying to the objective. There are forty-eight helicopters, arranged in sixteen flights of three helicopters. The intercom buzzes.

"Hello, hello. Captain Yellin to Kestrel flight. Come in, Kestrel flight." Edward said. "Number off, one to twenty, and provide status report. Kestrel Leader, reporting in."

"Kestrel two here. All systems active, over," said Natasha. "Good to be going again, Edward."

"Kestrel three here. All systems go, over," you say.

"Kestrel four here. Engines not performing well. Engines only providing 80% thrust. Fusion reactor ok, over." Grisha said. "Permission to head home for equipment check and possible repair."

"Roger, Kestrel four, break formation and head home." Yellin replied calmly.

"Roger. Kestrel four heading home, over."

The rest of the helicopter crews number off. The rest of the crews were accounted for. The radio crackles, then a message from command comes in.

"Kestrel this is Bison five-oh-three. Come in, Kestrel," the radio crackles.

"Roger. Kestrel Leader reporting." Replied Yellin.

"Kestrel, Eagle three-oh-four unable to make rendezvous at assigned time. Repeat: Eagle three-oh-four unable to make rendezvous at assigned time. Eagle will arrive at rendezvous one hour late. Confirm message received, and state course of action."

Freddy looks at you.

"What the-!" he is cut off by another transmission.

"Kestrel Leader here. Confirming message received. Kestrel will proceed to target. Advise Eagle to do the same, over."

"Roger, Kestrel Leader. Bison out."

The radio crackles, and clicks. Silence falls.

"Kestrel leader to Kestrel Flight, change of plans," Yellin said calmly, as if it was something minor, like a slight bruise from hitting a wall. "We will proceed unescorted into enemy territory. Be cautious of enemy aircraft. Refer to enemy aircraft as bandits. Move out."

Dan- Dinner time. Entrée: Mortar fire with a taste of Coalers

Dan stood in the bunker, peering into the darkness of the Sarayonar night. It has been several weeks since you got out of hospital, minus the shrapnel in my back and a few burns. After you got out of hospital, he was sent to Sarayonar. Sarayonar is a planet of giant forests of coral, trees that look like pines, lush, grassy plains and lakes. Thankfully, the days on Sarayonar last only about 24 hours. A few hours ago, you received a brief holomessage from Rick, telling you that he was on Atilan, Freddy was OK, and he was preparing for his first combat mission. Meanwhile, you are stuck in my bunker, as mortar fire pounds the base. You have yet to experience contact with the enemy.

The local Coalition armies, or 'Coalers' as the more experienced men called them, due to their helmets and battle tactics, were more dangerous than the normal breed of Coalition soldiers. They were better protected, for a start. Coalers' helmets look like 21st century miners' helmets with an attached metal gas masks of metal. It completely encloses a Coaler's face, and could, apparently, at the right angles, shrug off 7.62mm rotary cannon fire. Unlike normal Coalition soldiers, Coalers often made combined guerrilla and frontal attacks using superior technology and better soldiers as opposed to the guerrilla and human wave tactics that normal Coalition soldiers use. Coalers prefer blitzkrieg-style assaults to their riskier guerrilla tactic: burrowing underneath an enemy, setting off explosives, then swarming out of the crater generated by the explosives. Hundreds of front-line bases have been destroyed, rendered unusable or overrun by this tactic, but it is time consuming and renders the base unusable in the future. The coalers' objectives are to quickly overrun bases in order to capture them, and then use them against the enemy.

Fortunately, they prefer close-range tactics, meaning that if you meet Coalers they will usually waste time charging at you, so you can pick them off at a distance with an automatic weapon or an armoured unit like a Armoured Cavalry Assault Vehicle (known officially as the M-12 ACAV APC, colloquially as 'Rattlers' due to the unique noise the machine gun the APC mounts).

From what they'd told Dan, it was nigh on impossible to get a killing shot to the head on a Coaler with a rifle firing standard bullets, and the veterans suggested using aiming for the torso with, where a Coaler's second brain is located. Disabling the second brain paralyses a Coaler's more sophisticated functions, rendering it unable to use its limbs.

The local Federation armies developed many countermeasures to counter the Coalers' devastating tactics. This included duracrete foundations in major bases above ground level, or at least armour-plated floors, Modular construction of bases (to decrease the possibility of sabotage by Coalers while key components are being built) and emphasis on fighting at a distance from Coalers, and minimising contact with the enemy. This includes heavy emphasis on armour, hit-and-run attacks, guerrilla warfare, airstrikes and artillery. In fact, the only things that are not mobile are the bases themselves. Sure, a rudimentary firebase can be created using two mobile command centres, a replenishment vehicle, two self-propelled anti-aircraft batteries and four self-propelled howitzers, but a base can contain more supplies, and you can't launch a gunship from a mobile command centre.

So, the bases remained as giant, stationary structures, while the infantry use hit-and-run tactics and relied on their ability to function as independent, close-knit groups. Defense was maintained by bunkers on the perimeter, often with one squad of infantry supported by a machine-gunner in each. On Sarayonar, the concept of firebases has been replaced with Forward Operating Bases. They are now mostly underground, centred around a forward airstrip, and houses one battalion of troops and at least one squadron of aircraft, most often the F/A-24 Amphyrade.

The Amphyrade is a formidable aircraft, being able to carry loads of about forty-two thousand pounds- rivalling that of the B-4 used in the Power Wars used after the Great Collapse of 2060. It is the workhorse of the Federation Air Force. Variants are used in many purposes. These purposes include but are not limited to tactical bombing, suppression of enemy air defences, close air support, achieving and maintaining aerial superiority, electronical warfare, reconnaissance and even as a drone mothership.

Millions of these venerable fighters are in service, thanks to hundreds of 'factory worlds' in the outer rim of the galaxy. These factory worlds are only kept at a survivable level thanks to atmospheric conditioners located in the upper atmosphere, purifying the air. Raw materials are imported in from colonies in the inner and mid rims of the galaxy. Earth is a technological and natural marvel. Hundreds of forests and nature reserves exist there, and it is considered the jewel of the Federation.

Thinking about Earth makes you reminisce about the 2090s. You were about twelve back then. The Interplanetary rebellion begun. It was the first ever interplanetary war fought by the fledgling Federation, and its first major war. You still remember the time when you had to hide in a bunker from the Rebellion airstrikes and nuclear counterattacks on Turia. The war ended in 2100, when the Coalition took advantage of the turmoil to invade the planets of the Federation. The Federation and the Rebellion signed a truce, and now fight against the Coalition together, but you think that it is almost guaranteed that the Rebellion will start again after the Coalition is beaten.

Mortar shells continually pound the base. The forward airstrip is still intact, and the high-explosive contact-fused mortar shells have failed to crater the runway. Or the reinforced concrete roof of the underground facilities and the roof of the small bunker. Dan was preparing for a Coaler attack, since enemy activity was reported near his Forward Operations Airbase at Hill 892. Then, the hail of mortar fire lifts.

The man next to you, called Frank, peers into the dark. He's been here half a year, so he's experienced, but not so much to be called a vet.

"You see, Danny-boy," he says, peering out. "When the barrage stops, there's probably someone out there."

And like he said, a strange, dark shadow moves in the grass. Then another. And another. Frank shouts into the radio.

"This is bunker four. Contacts spotted in grass. Permission to fire?"

"Granted, bunker four," replies a deep, husky voice.

This is it, you think.

Dan grabbed the trigger of his machine gun, checked that a belt was loaded, and steadied his sights. Sleeping men in the bunker awaken. They grabbed rifles, and Frank grabs a box of MG ammunition.

"Lock and load, Danny," he said, and places the box near my .50 cal. machine gun You notice that it is a box of High-explosive incendiary armour-piercing rounds.

"Isn't using these rounds against infantry illegal?" you asked. The veterans say that my adherence to the rules and regulations is what shows you're a new hand at the game.

"Everyone does it, and it isn't illegal if you don't get caught," Frank said. "And plus, these rounds are more effective against Coalers.

You look at the box. You look at the box currently loaded. It too is full of HEIAP rounds.

You dismiss the thought of reporting Frank with a shake of his head, and line up my sights, and fire a three-second burst at the nearest Coaler's head.

The noise of the gun firing echoed throughout the room.

The Coaler's head bursts into pieces. The body topples over.

Huh. Looks like HEIAP rounds really are effective, you think.

You keep firing.

Rifles crack. Coalers start to fall.

An illumination shell bursts in the sky above, and lights up the fields. You can see hundreds of coalers moving through the grass, and a few regular Coalition soldiers. You continue firing, holding the trigger down in 3 second bursts, pausing for a few seconds at each time for another machine gun in another bunker to fire. Then, when the other gun stops, you fire again. Just like what they told you to do in training.

A person manning one of the rocket launchers fires. A mortar round screams down and hits a small group of Coalers, killing them. Rifles fire three-round bursts. Someone in the forward foxholes screams. A Coaler staggers back from the impact of a rifle round, and then falls to the ground. Someone fires a rocket from a launcher. It hits a team of Coalers setting up a machine gun, and pulverises them.

You hear the small lift used for ferrying full clips and boxes of ammo up to the bunker whine, and the clatter as Frank places an empty box of rounds in the lift, and the clinking of the rounds in the full box which came up in the lift. You work mechanically.

Fire, hold, release. Fire, hold, release. Fire, hold, release. Fire, hold, release, reload. Fire, hold, release.

And the battle rages on. The mortar screams down. Men and aliens alike scream war cries and fall. The only constant sound is the stutter of the machine gun.

Fire, hold, release. Fire, hold, release. Fire, hold, release.

The Devils Have Come for Blood- Rick

The first sign of bandits came about fifteen minutes before the escorting fighters arrived at the objective at Nal'irathika. The formation had split up, and each helicopter crew was attacking of its own accord. A man in Kestrel Nine saw the fighters first.

"Kestrel Nine here," he said through the radio. "There are nine unidentified aircraft, coming in from bearing two-two-three, in three groups of nine."

Rick and Fred were strafing an enemy position at the time, so you had no time to look up at the sky. The first warning sign of the presence of fighters was a high-pitched whine which could be heard over the sound of Rick's radio, which then turned into a scream as the fighters got closer. Then, the fighters streak past, emitting blue exhaust. Time seemed to slow as they swoop past him. They are oddly shaped. They have sharp noses, and two large engines. They have twin-boom tails and swept wings. At the last moment, Rick realised that they are enemy fighter aircraft, and not the photoreconnaissance variant either. Rick remembers recognising them as Filament-Ds.

"Kestrel Three, break, break, break!" someone shouts over the radio. A blue streak of smoke zooms across the sky, and smashes into A helicopter on the other side of the base. The helicopter doesn't spiral down or disintegrate into a million pieces like in the movies. There is a small explosion, and the helicopter falls like a stone. Bits of its tail fall off. It plummets down from 100 feet above ground. The helicopter crashes into the ground, upside down.

You hear screams of fear and anger on the radio, as well as shouts.

"Helix nine, break, break, break!"

"Alligator four, you have a missile on my tail, release flares n- No! No! Tommy! No!"

"Gaah! Help me! Somebody, please help me! Help! Plea-"

Helicopters fall from the sky, some spiralling down, some simply falling upside down, others trailing black smoke. They fall from the sky, like birds shot down by hunters. The fighters make another pass, firing more missiles.

"Ohgodohgodohgod- Argh!"

"Mama!"

"Missiles incoming, Alligator five, break, brea- oh no! No! No! No! Oh god please no! N-gaah! Argh!"

Men and women scream, trapped in their flaming metal coffins plummeting down from the sky.

"Lord in heaven, please let me get home alive! Please!"

"Dad! Mum! Help me! Please!"

"Mother! Help!"

"Oh god I'm on fire! Help!"

"No! No! No! Please, no!"

You scream and tear my headphones off. It's too horrible to listen to.

"Freddy, look! Over there!" shouts Rick, pointing.

You look at where he is pointing. The familiar shapes of F/A-24 Amphyrades. You peer more closely. There are twelve of them, in three flights of four.

The flights split up into pairs.

"This is Eagle three-oh-four, come in, helicopter squadrons. Alligator, Kestrel, Helix, do you copy?"

"This is Kestrel Two, you're too late," you say. "Kestrel squadron is nearly gone. I don't know about the other squadrons."

"Kestrel Leader here," Yellin said. Somehow, he survived the barrage of missiles. "Alligator leader reports that they have six surviving helicopters, and Helix squadron has nine. We have seven. The enemy fighters seem to be gone, but we would appreciate air cover."

"Roger that, Kestrel leader. Eagle out."

The attack was a strategic success. Nal'irathika was no longer occupied by the enemy, and it was now a Federation holding. But to the pilots? It was a Charlie-fox, a euphemism for an army term meaning 'self-destructive operation'. Most of the pilots from each squadron had been downed in the skies above Nal'irathika. You thought that the air campaign over Nal'irathika was a waste of human life. Two hundred and eighty-eight pilots and gunners had gone out in one hundred and-forty-four helicopters. Two hundred and eighty-four men in one hundred and forty-two helicopters reached their destination, and only forty pilots and gunners made it back to base from the attack. Most of the gunners had been mortally wounded during the battle by anti-aircraft fire from the ground or had been shot down.

When you got back, Rick looked at you grimly, and said that he was going to get a drink at the mess.

You nodded, and walked off to the mess with Rick. In the bar, people clapped and gave you large pats on the back, but it didn't feel right.

That day, when it was night-time on earth and everybody was sleeping, you couldn't sleep. You keep hearing the screams and shouts of the pilots dying. My bed bucked like the helicopter had during the day. You stepped out into the sunlight, and watched a few aircraft fly out. Amphyrades. When you see them, you remember the screams of the doomed pilots and gunners.

Two hundred and forty-four… you thought. Two hundred and forty-four dead, and I didn't even know their names.

You stare into the distance, thinking about the two hundred and forty-four. What would their mothers feel when they got the dreaded holomessage saying that their sons and daughters had died in battle? What if my mother received one of those holomessage?

It hurts, thinking about the two hundred and forty-four dead pilots' families and loved ones. It hurts to think about how devastated they will be when the get one of the dreaded emails.

"Can't go to sleep, kid?" someone askeds from the shadows.

"Wha?" you exclaim, turning around. "Jesus, Yellin! You scared me! Warn me before you do something like that again, alright?"

"Ok then," he replied. He takes a sip from a small bottle. "Here. Take a sip of this. It's just vodka mixed with some orange juice. It lessens the pain."

"How do you know abou-"

"Just shut up and take a sip. It helps deal with the pain."

You take the bottle, and take a sip. It has a burning sensation as it passes down my throat, and you want to gag.

"Wow." You cough. "Strong."

Edward nods, and takes the bottle back.

"You get used to it," he replied, taking a sip. "You get used to people dying out here too. I was like you once. My friend and I were in the Air Force until about a month ago. We were in different helicopters. Today's attack wasn't the first attack on Nal'irathika."

"Not the first?" you asked. "How do you know?"

"My god, did you listen to the C.O. at the briefing?" he exclaims. "He said explicitly: 'the 15th Army Cooperation squadron has been here before.' We've been out here for almost 4 years now. Our previous mission was a month ago. Before that, we'd been conducting routine convoy interdiction missions. The mission to Nal'irathika a month ago was our first operation with the infantry."

"Wait, how long have you been out here?" you asked.

"Three years and five months."

"That's long."

"No, it isn't. some of us have been here five years, and we're never going home."

"Why?"

"A tour of duty is two years, right? You probably won't even get through. Once you sign up, you're here for life, which most likely will until you die. No-one who came here at the start of the war will make it out alive, or whole. Everyone has been scarred in this hellhole. The people going out or coming back in? Most are either some REMFs or new hands coming to die here. The rest are just wrecks of their former selves, who find that civvy life is just too weird to handle. And don't get me started on the Combat Junkies!"

"Don't be so pessimistic! We outnumber the enemy a million to one!"

"That's what happened in the Winter War. And remind me, who won? The bloody Finnish, that's who. All the men, guns and tanks didn't do them Rosyjski pierdółki much good."

"We've gained ground! We are overrunning the enemy! We still outnumber them!"

"Same deal with the Arab-Israeli and the first two world wars. The Arabs outnumbered the Israelis, and lost. The Germans gained a lot of ground, and in world war two, most of western Europe. And they lost."

"What happened at Nal'irathika? There were only eight people alive who were previously in the 15th, judging by what I saw. How were forty pilots and gunners killed in one day?"

"There were eight survivors able to fight, not alive. thirty men returned, but only eight of us were healthy enough to keep flying. The rest were dismembered, driven insane or had died. Some of the gunners flew back the aircraft on their own, with a bloody corpse lying next to them."

"Wh-what happened?"

"We ran into fighters, like we did today. Six fighters made low passes against our helicopters, shooting down four with missiles. The fighters ran off after them. Then nine other fighters engaged us. Most of us went down then. Then, the escort came back, and chased them away. The attack was a failure because we couldn't provide enough air support with only one helicopter with a complete crew. That's partly why one hundred and forty-four helicopters were used today."

"What's the other reason?"

"Tac-com is made up of idiotic officers who haven't even flown a helicopter before, except in flight school."

An Amphyrade streaks over my head. You look up, and stare into the heavens. Hearing the Amphyrade fly out into the sky reminds you of the dead pilots. Their screams of horror, fear and sorrow echo in my head.

"Caught the stare, haven't you?" Yellin asked. He seems sympathetic, but it's hard to tell, because he speaks in a calm voice most of the time.

"The stare?" You asked.

"The thousand-yard-stare. You've got it now. Everyone catches it, except the Rear-Eche- …"

His spate of profanity is cut off by the ringing note of a klaxon.

"Squadrons, scramble! Incoming enemy raid! Repeat: Squadrons, scramble! Incoming enemy raid!" a man shouts over the intercom.

The Klaxon blares. There is a flurry of activity near where the fighter aircraft are. Air-to-air missiles are wheeled out. Anti-aircraft guns swivel to face the direction where the enemy is coming from. Missile batteries are readied. Men run towards bunkers, and some towards aircraft. Ammo and air-to-air missiles are wheeled out to the fighters, and the big, wide-bellied bombers slowly taxi out near another runway. Their wings are at the back of the aircraft, and face forwards, so they look like long-necked geese when they take to the air. They are painted blue on their undersides, but have Adaptive Camouflage Surfaces on their upper surfaces, which actively camouflage the aircraft depending on the terrain it is on. Other aircraft are not equipped with it because it is very heavy.

"Oh, yes, and I wanted to tell you one thing," said Edward.

"What? Is it good or bad?" you asked.

"You're from Turia, aren't you?"

"Yes, I was born there."

"We're getting rotated there. Apparently Hi-com has a surprise in store for us there."

"Oh. Ok."

Edward sighs.

"Cheer up, comrade," he said, patting you on the back. "We don't lose so many of our own all the time. Perhaps next time you'll be able to do something with the weapons you have."

"I hope so," you replied. "I hope so…"

Dan- trading real estate for men

You sit in the foxholes. It is cold. So devilishly cold. Probably because it is raining now, and you are attempting to stay up at the middle of night in a small hole dug into the surface of mud out on a planet which wants to kill you. Whether it be the Coalers, the dangerous flora and fauna, the strange diseases, the dreadful weather or even my own weapon exploding in my hands, something always tries to kill you. It has been months since my first engagement with actual Coalers. And the days have been as bad as the nights. During the night, the Coalers come to silently gut you and run, but in the day, the Coaler artillery and air force try to turn you into a red stain on the grassy plains. Time has become curiously telescoped lately. Perhaps it was seventeen enemies you had killed in the past month. Or was it nineteen? You don't know. You forgot. Every day is the same. The FNGs come and leave. Some of the old hands get shot and die, and new FNGs replace them, before dying on their first day. Only five of the new replacements have survived, out of seventy-four that came in last month.

You sit in a bunker with four FNGs. Frank is the only non-FNG here. He's now unofficially a machine gunner, and he sits in the corner, cleaning his gun. My other assistant is an FNG, a young bod who is barely seventeen. His name is Arthur, and in so many ways he reminds you of Bletchley. Chubby, freckled, but with dark, dark eyes and hair. His skin is as white as the snow, and his eyes sparkle with hope. The other FNGs are riflemen, Harris, Han, and Rojas. They are sixteen, and to quote a line you found in an old magazine: 'too young to vote, but old enough to kill,' which is certainly true in this case.

He stands there, bright-eyed, looking around at the people around him with awe.

"Have you really seen the Coalers?" he askeds. "What are they like?"

Everyone answers with blank expressions. They don't want to tell him.

"It's not good," Frank said. He's smiling, so he's probably going to fool around. "You see, the Coalers are the feistiest aliens who have ever existed. They're like ants. Can't go through the front door? Go through the basement."

Arthur's eyes widen in surprise.

"They could just dig up from the floor and kill us all, right here, right now," Frank continues. "No-one can stop them, no-one can see them coming, and nobody is able to predict their attacks."

"Aw, Frank, shut up and stop scaring the noobs, goddammit," you replied. "We have an armour-plated floor, no Coaler on this hellhole could get through that. You're getting more cynical by the minute."

"Cynical? You're calling me cynical?" he askeds incredulously. "Oh, so is it so good here that I would be a happy idiot? No, that's the junkies or the screwy little REMFs who think that."

"Shut up, imbecile," you retort.

"Coming from you, the person who couldn't find the HMG in front of him!" said Frank.

"What's a REMF?" askeds one of the FNGs.

"Never mind," you replied.

"You'll learn soon enough," adds Frank.

The Coalers haven't been attacking recently. This is quite a respite for you and my fellow soldiers, but you think that the enemy is up to something. But their activities have been obscured by the forest. Meanwhile, you have been scanning the ground in front of you, and have been looking for any signs of movement in the tall, grassy plains. There is no movement, and the skies are clear, save for the Amphyrades coming and going.

Not for long, said the voice in the back of my head.

But the question is, what are the Coalers doing?

Freddy: Clear Skies and a Sight of the Heavens.

You look at the gunship lined up in front of you in the large hanger. Large, heavy and strong, the AC-28 is a gunship pilot's heaven. Its design is revolutionary. The propulsion devices are the wings. Well, not literally. The engines tilt around the wings. Two large propellers in the engines in nacelles attached to the wings spin at unimaginably high rpm, propelling the aircraft to past supersonic. They are electrically powered, meaning that they will work if there is air.

It is a large gunship. It has space for an entire 20-man operational unit, with 2 squads of four riflemen, 2 squads of three riflemen and a grenade launcher, and one squad of three riflemen/assistants and a machine gunner. If required, the gunship can be outfitted with an internal bomb bay instead of a troop compartment. It has door guns that can be manually controlled by two gunners or controlled by hand.

The door turrets are based of the design of the 'Kugelblitz' from World War Two. The turret is a fully enclosed ball of armour, carrying four autocannons firing HEIAP rounds. The wings are quite large, and have space for four hardpoints on each wing, capable of carrying a combined total of 20000lbs of ordnance. It is based of a failed design for a VTOL cargo aircraft. The main gun turrets are mounted at the front. They too are based on the design of the 'Kugelblitz' but instead of four autocannons like the two door turrets attached to the sides they have two 23mm cannons working on the 'Gast' principle in each turret. The 'Gast' design was used by the former 'YelBloc' before and during the Great Collapse.

It occurs to you that the gunship is quite ugly compared to the sleek push-lift configuration helicopter you piloted on Atilan.

"Ok, you've got three hours to do whatever you want with it," said a nearby mechanic. "just don't crash, or there's hell to pay."

You ignore him, and climb up the stairs to the cockpit.

The chair inside is padded nicely. The hangar doors open, and you are pulled into the blue Turian sky. A perfect day for flying.

The ground crew signals for you to start powering up. You slowly and delicately push the throttle up. The engine whines loudly. Then, the large gunship starts lifting off the ground. You shove the throttle up to full, and the gunship rises above the ground at a rapidly increasing rate. You put the throttle into the middle, then delicately push the control column forward. The gunship responds instantly, and starts moving forward. The controls are suprisingly light for a gunship of that size.

The gunship rises, up, up, up and further into the air.

Then, you climb up to 35000ft to commence a power dive to exceed supersonic.

But you stop, and while you hover, you stare out of my cockpit to see something as beautiful and exhilarating as diving down and exceeding supersonic. Something heavenly.

You see the curvature of the planet.

How nice is it that even during a war I can see things like heaven? You think.

But then you remember that you fight here. A war in heaven.

The skies are a deep azure, and the lights of the city below glow like fireflies in the dark night skies over the planet. You stop, and hover there, revelling at the sight of the curvature of the planet. The sky and atmosphere is a palette of blue hues.

"My god!" shouts Rick. "So, this is what heaven is like, eh? Nice that we didn't ruin it."

"No," you say. "This is where we fight. We fight a war in heaven, Fred."

You stay there for several more hours before finally returning to base. But as you come down, you spot some white streaks coming down from space.

Meteor shower, you guess. But the things coming down are far worse than that…

Dan: smoke in the air, blood in the fields

The attack came without warning during the middle of the night.

It started off with a giant explosion in front of one of the bunkers, killing all the men inside. Then, hundreds, if not thousands of coalers poured out of the hole, screaming horrible war cries. Their tanks trundled into the fray from the forest. The howitzers managed to fire a few illumination rounds before being swamped by Coalers and being put out of action. The enemy forced you and my squad to evacuate the bunker and retreat to the main underground complex. Inside, fighting is fierce, for the Coalers are firing their guns indoors, and the fight is raging on.

You sit behind a rudimentary barricade in the hangar. The coalers are firing their guns into the hangar after breaching the interior doors, and you are waiting for them to stop firing and reload. But the fire perpetually rains down upon you and my comrades. The order has come from tac-com that one of you must advance, but no one is willing to risk getting shot by the withering hail of flying lead and red-hot nickel.

The last person who charged went down in a three-second burst from a machine gun used by the enemy. It was one of the FNGs. He was shivering in the corner, pissing his pants when he snapped. He pulled two grenades from his belt. His face was a curious mixture of fear, anger and stress. His eyes were bloodshot, and he was quivering like some strange wild animal. He then said,

"I'm going to go and kill every one of them buggers!"

He charged through the doorway and pulled the pins on the grenades.

The grenades detonated in a flash of orange light, and the gunfire stopped. Then it started up again.

It seems that as the Coalers die, they get replaced by seven others. The gunfire never stops, and they seem to never run out of ammunition for their rifles.

You are preparing to surrender. Someone has prepared a white flag. Then, a new officer strolls into the room.

"What the hell are you lazy idiots doing?" he shouts.

"Shut yer trap! We don't want to die!" whispers Frank from the far side of the room. He is clutching his arm, wrapped in a bandage. He was shot earlier in the day.

"You were ordered to attack!" he shouts. "Now get on my feet and attack, for Christ's sake! Who is in command here?"

"No one, sir," someone said.

"Don't lie to me, soldier," the officer shouts. "and speak with respect, you little wimp!"

"Sir, we are all privates," Frank said quietly. "Our officer was shot a few hours ago."

"Well then, I order you to attack!" he shouts. "I am in command now! Attack, you lazy whelps!"

No-one moves.

"Idiots! Attack! Do I have to do everything?"

The officer charges into the other room, pistol in one hand…

And screams after getting hit by bullets from the enemy.

"Damned FNGs are going to ruin everything!" shouts Frank.

"We gotta do something!" you shout back. "Has anyone got a grenade launcher?"

"No, but I can get someone over!" someone shouts.

"Don't, they'll just get cut down by ell-em-gee fire from the doorway!" you replied.

You decide to do something crazy. You decide to toss a white phosphorous smoke grenade towards the doorway. It will probably result in some collateral damage, but it is better than getting cut down by ell-em-gee fire from the other room.

"I'm tossing a Willie-peter, everyone: get down unless you want my eyes burnt out!"

The grenade flies into the doorway of the other room, bounces, once, twice, three times…

Then bursts into a glow of white flame. Searing white globules fly everywhere.

A coaler runs out of the room, on fire, and then he collapses. It seems as if the Coalers are susceptible to high temperatures.

The Coaler looks up at you, holding up a trembling arm. Then someone shoots it with their rifle, and it finally dies, collapsing on the ground.

"Kriffin' Coalers," Frank said, holding a smoking rifle.

The FNGs are white-faced, and some of them are trembling. What could it be? Fear? Despair? Watching death?

Rojas and Harris are dead, with bullet wounds everywhere after getting hit by Coaler machine gun fire.

Arthur stands near my machine gun. He looks at you, and then at the dead coaler. Then returns his gaze to you, and then he runs to a corner of the room and vomits. You follow him. He looks up at you. He seems to gaze out at something behind you. His eyes are unfocused. You've seen this condition before in other people. You saw it in some of the veterans who had just come out of battle. They looked as if they were looking at somewhere far away, in a world of their own. In some strange waking nightmare. Some of them walked around as if they were sleepwalking. Others simply sat down, stared blankly into space, and said nothing. One person was dragged into a cargo aircraft screaming about rats and dark tunnels. Probably one of the tunnel runners who cleared the tunnels Coalers make using explosives and other things.

"You okay?" you asked.

Arthur looks back at you, speechless, and just nods.

"It's always like this on my first day," you tell him. "You always see something terrible, and you get ticked off, and you get scared."

You feel ashamed about lying to him about the first bit, but you carry on.

"I soiled my pants on my first day," you say. "One of my friends, he killed himself during training."

Arthur starts crying.

You sit down next to him, patting his back as he sobs.

Then, you remember what my father said once, during a video call, after my first time here, and after you killed for the first time.

"Danny, innocence is the first victim of war," he said, on the verge of tears. "It hurts, very much. It hurts so much to lose it, but the only way you survive is by staying strong and getting on with the fight. It still hurts, Danny. I remember the first time I killed another man. I remember being ordered to do terrible things, and ordering others to do terrible things too. It hurt, Danny. Don't let the pain overwhelm you. Just move on."

Then he burst into tears, and had to be taken away by mother.

But Father would know about how losing innocence was so painful.

He knew about what happened in war, both on the home front and on the battlefronts. More about the battlefronts than the home front, but he had seen the aftermath of one of the big battles.

He knew a lot, that man.

Freddy – War comes home

The Klaxon blares. My feet pound the concrete floor of the hangar as you run to my gunship. The gunners stand ready. Rick climbs into the rear cockpit. If it were another day, you would have made a joke about how punctual he was. But not today. You climb in, and finish my pre-flight checks.

Brakes. Flaps. Gear. Rudder. Elevons. Engines. Oil. Battery. Ammo. Comms.

You switch things on.

The Auxiliary power unit hums. Then the two large turbines turn on. Today, the load is cargo for the front lines. A howitzer, to be exact.

You taxi out of the hangar onto the ground in front of the runway. You see other gunships in front of you taxi-ing out to the same place.

"This is Hussar Romeo-Hotel-six-four-one, requesting permission for Vertical take-off, over," you hear Yellin say.

"Roger, Romeo-Hotel Six-Four-one, permission granted. Standby for instructions, over." The voice on the radio said.

"This is Ararat, permission granted for take-off, tractor is clear. Please taxi-out onto runway before proceeding."

"Roger that, Ararat, Romeo-Hotel Six-Four-one copies. Wilco. Out."

The gunships taxi down to the runway, and you follow.

Yellin, in front, takes off first.

You are third in line. You wait until the gunship in front of you has disappeared from my line of sight before taking off.

You open the throttle slightly. The plane starts to rise. You remember the last time you were in a helicopter. Before.

The attack on Nal'irathika has reduced itself onto a single concept: the before.

Everyone died: before.

During the Before, you were very, very, very afraid.

You throttle up, and start forming up in formation.

"This is Red leader, all sections, please confirm message received," Yellin said, as calm as ever.

"Red two copies five by five"

"Red Three copies, signal five by five." you say.

"yellow three reading you five by five"

"Yellow two copies"

"This is Green three, confirming message received, signal five by five."

"Roger Red Leader, this is Green one, receiving five by five."

"Green two, do you receive?" Yellin said.

"Green two is bingo, fuel leak."

"Yellow one, do you receive?" Yellin askeds.

"Yellow one had a machinery problem sir, one of the turrets jammed and will not move, cannot be in air,"

"Roger that. Form up and we will head over enemy territory."

The formation heads over the grassy plains of the planet. As you head closer and closer to the battlefield, you can see increasingly stronger signs of destruction. Scorched fields. Burnt-out husks of vehicles. Burnt… things. Is that really what burnt corpses look like?

Dead bodies. Then rubble of long-gone buildings. As you get closer to the field of battle you can see other things, like destroyed tanks, crashed planes which are still on fire, field hospitals, resup convoys heading towards the front lines and my destination: a firebase near the front lines. It is more of a sandbag fortress, really. The walls of sandbags are stacked high. Two-metre high walls. Machine gun nests at the top of the walls. From behind a wall of sandbags, a mortar periodically fires shells towards the enemy.

40mm guns bark as an enemy aircraft comes in to engage, and

Some men in the fort are setting up a temporary tactical command center in the middle of the fort. Others are setting up some Surface-to-air missile launchers. Resup convoys enter and leave. Resup convoys are the blood of the army, and without them, the front-line troops would be cut off. It is up to the air force and navy to keep the supply lines clear of enemies. destroyers escorting the convoys at sea, ensuring supplies get through. Then the road resup convoys, travelling along roads and open plains to get supplies where there are needed. There are too many enemy fighters to risk cargo aircraft taking off, according to the estimate that fighters and ground attack aircraft are in a ratio of 2:1, there will be about 4000 fighters aircraft in the skies or capable of being deployed: It is simply too much of a risk.

The howitzer is offloaded, and the message comes through on the radio.

"Load is off, Red three, you're clear."

"Copy. Will take off," you say, and you take off.

Then, a person calls in.

"This is Lima X-ray fifteen-niner, calling all available air assets! Repeat, Lima X-ray fifteen-niner, calling all available air assets! Does anyone receive?"

"Roger, this is Romeo-Hotel Six-four three, Lima X-ray fifteen-niner receiving five by five. Please specify needs," you replied.

"We need immediate fire mission, co-ords longitude North twenty points nine two four eight, east eighty-nine-point-two-six-two! Fire mission enemy mortar battery, near ruins of church! Oh no! Help! Just- dammit! We need immediate evac now!"

Something happens. You hear a muffled explosion, and the line cuts to static. The co-ordinates are barely thirty kilks away. It's on a beach. three minutes on full thrust.

"Lima, X-ray Fifteen-niner, do you receive? Lima X-ray Fifteen-niner, we are coming in," you say.

You fly my gunship towards the co-ordinates. My gunship rocks in the wake of a shell from a heavy field mortar. While you fly, you realise that my gunners are new hands. Eff-en-gees fresh from the Repple-Depple in the capital. They haven't seen aerial battle before. One man is someone who was in the infantry for three months out on Atilan. He received a decoration (a Red Hand) but that doesn't matter. It takes a particular kind of man to be brave enough to fly on an aircraft he does not control inside a cramped glass sphere that is literally attached to the aircraft by a single beam. And then he must ignore fighter attacks, the sound of bullets flying and clattering on his bulletproof glass ball and oily triple A bursts dangerously close to his positions and calmly align the sights of a Dashka (a type of cannon) and return fire.

You see a small pocket of allied resistance. The enemy has surrounded a single bunker in the middle of the beach. Alone, it stands as the sole point of resistance. It is gathered around what seems to be the ruins of a cathedral. There is rubble of old buildings around it, and the old stone bricks of the church are littered everywhere.

The mortar shells pour down from the sky.

You dive down, and the aircraft screams. The forward guns of the aircraft blaze.

The gun turrets blaze.

All ten of the 23mm cannons provide suppressive fire. The sky lights up. You fire my rockets at any target nearby, making several passes, destroying some mortar positions and killing massed groups of troops set on overrunning the position.

Coalition troops run to their dugouts. Anti-aircraft guns are quickly supressed. An 40mm burst gets dangerously close to where you fly. An 88mm bursts in front of my aircraft, making you flinch. You hear shrapnel hit the side of the aircraft. You hope that the loadmaster is ready to receive the troops coming in.

"Lima X-ray fifteen-niner, aircraft off port side of emplacement. Lima X-ray fifteen-niner, do you receive?" you hear Rick say.

"Roger, Romeo-Hotel Six-four three, watch for enemy triple A off port side," the man on radio said.

"Wilco. Out," you say in response.

You come down, and with guns blazing, you hover just above the ground. The ramp lowers, and touches the ground. From the speakers, you can hear the Loadmaster shouting.

"Get in quickly!" he shouts. "Every second you spend out there makes us a sitting duck for longer, and we all have family to get back to after the war!"

You hear the clangs as people jump on to the ramp and hit the floor running.

People pant.

Bullets bang against the armour plating of my gunship. You involuntarily flinch as a hail of Ell-em-gee bullets hits the bullet-proof glass of the cockpit.

The ramp whines at it rises.

Time to go.

As the two quadruple turrets blaze.

Good old Dashkas, you say, referring to the informal name of the 23mm cannons on the aircraft.

The cannons are Rusbloc. They come from some of the eastern industrial facilities, those with a Slavic Majority. Dashkas are made on Piast, one of the inner colony planets close to Earth. It makes the Dąbrowski-Shipunov-Kowalczyk DaShK-30-2-D¬¬l. in the Russian fashion, the company names its products in this way:

Initial-Initial-Initial-calibre (mm)- number of barrels- Dl (polish for lengthened)

The affectionate name for these cannons is Dashka, which is a Russian name for the old Degtyaryova-Shpagina DsHK1938 heavy machine gun chambered for the 12.7mm x 118mm round.

The Dashka (the ones from Piast, of course) have a reputation as one of the best cannons in service. They are easy to service and maintain, function well in all types of climates and has a high fire rate. The problem is that they have a suprisingly slow fire rate for a cannon working on the Gast principle.

You are distracted from my thoughts by a burst of sporadic triple A fire off my port side. The lines are off to port. You slip down from a high altitude and zoom. The lines fly by as you head back to my base.

Once you land, and offload my passengers, you are greeted by the other pilots.

"Where've you been?" they asked, crowding around you.

"Having some fun with the Coalition Army," you say.

Rick- News on the home front

You sit with Freddy and Captain Yellin at a table in a table in the bar. The mess radio is playing some old jazz from the mid-twentieth century.

The invasion should have been obvious from the start.

The first sign was the loss of contact with a few orbital space stations two years before. Well, not that obvious. Those were just a few repair installations, with average sensors. No-one would have guessed that taking them out would have made a huge gap in the scanner band. Once those were taken out, there was a small strip of space that was rendered blind. About 72 kilometers wide at its widest point, and 320 kilometers long, it was splat-bang in the middle of the plains, far enough from any major centres of population, but close enough for an invasion. Somewhere where no-one would bother to go.

Next to go were some covert military space stations. They were secret facilities, testing weapons, and deliveries happened once every year, using unmanned craft. The installations were meant to maintain radio silence for the period of their two-year mission, so nothing was noticed.

Then came the drop pods. They came down from space, and landed in a grid pattern. Drilled into the earth. Slowly, gently. Away from mines. Away from cities or towns. A few farmers and their families went missing, along with livestock and crops.

It was attributed to this group of criminals who had been on the run for a few weeks, having escaped.

A few days before the attack said criminals were found with holes in their heads. An autopsy released on the news exactly one hour before hell started showed that they had been dead for a month.

the drop pods were made to come in with a meteor shower, so nothing was noticed. It was assumed that the re-entering drop pods were just meteors.

A year and a half passed.

Then they rose out of their holes. An entire network of tunnels had been dug under Turian soil. And once the tunnels leading into civilised centres were finished, hell began.

In the year and a half, the Coalition had created a vast underground base, with barracks, supply depots, war factories and command centres.

Judging from captured records, it seems that about half a year passed from when the first drop pods came in until the cities were fully established.

Once the tunnels were opened, fully outfitted coalition divisions poured out. Tanks rolled straight onto the streets of a city.

Hundreds of Coalition soldiers swarmed over the plains.

The Coalition Air Force performed bombing raids, designated targets for orbital strikes and caused the deaths of six million in the first week alone.

20000 people died every week.

You can't see it from where my base is, but somewhere, up there, there's a space battle being fought. At night, in the countryside, a bit out from the cities, you can see streaks of white light coming down. It's wreckage of ships, both enemy and friendly.

"Someone change the damn channel!" someone shouts, agitated. "All this jazz is getting' on my nerves!"

Then, the radio crackles, and a man starts to speak.

"Welcome back to Radio Turia, where the best hits and the best talks come up. Right now, we've got a special guest, coming up after the next song," said the man, as cheery as ever.

"Well that man sure seems cheery, what, with all the war and such," Freddy said.

"Shut up, Freddy," you and the Captain say at the same time.

"Okay, okay, fine," Freddy said. "Next time, I'll leave you to be depressed with the C.O., and I'll do nothing when you try to kill yerself. Seriously, what's wrong. Are you thinking about my girl?"

"No," you replied. "I'm thinking of home."

Home.

What are you even going to say to mother?

You can imagine myself saying, "Dear mum, today I watched a few kids burn to death after an airstrike. I was very sad. Love and kisses, Rick,"

Such a nice thing, isn't it?

Even worse is thinking about whether she is even still alive or not. My home is in the outer suburbs, and that has become the front lines of the war on Turia. Battles like this have been reported in all the big cities. Currently, New Sydney and Halifax are bearing the brunt of the Coalition invasion. In most of the other cities, coalition forces were repulsed or retreated. According to the press, there is a huge battle going on in space right now, yet it is still a stalemate, with no force being able to successfully triumph over the other. The populace thinks that they're lying, because there is debris combing down every day, and most of the wreckage that comes down is debris of Federation fighters, cruisers and destroyers. The Battle for Turia, as it is now being called, is simply one big stalemate, with painfully slow progress on the ground. Even in the places where the Armed Forces are on the offensive, the cities must be taken slowly. Block by block. Building by building. There are rumours circulating that the attack on Turia is a distraction for a larger invasion: an invasion on earth. Turia is one of the closest planets to earth. One of the planets designated as one of the final lines of defence.

The military has a large presence on Turia, and thousands, if not millions, of outposts dot the planet's surface. Military units are all over the planet. Airbases dot the planet at strategic locations. When you were a child, not a day went by when a fighter aircraft did not fly over the city. And now, that dream of war on Turian soil has become reality. Tanks in the streets. Rubble everywhere. Once great skyscrapers reduced to nothing more than piles of ash, rubble and scorched steel beams.

Like when the Rebellion came to Turia, during the latter part of the 21st century.

Father was there at the time, and Rick had just been born. The rebellion came after a period of prosperity for Turia.

It had just experienced a wave of alien immigration, but most importantly: the industry had begun to become automated. The key leaders of the rebellion were xenophobic and they hated robots to the core. They advocated for a united Federation under one 'superior' race: Humanity, and some aliens. They tried to get a law passed to ban the use of AIs in all sectors of the economy. The Rebellion began after the law was not passed.

The men around you start to grumble, for what seems to be no good reason. Then you realise that they are angry at the man on the radio.

"Well, Mr Stevenson, I believe that this war has gone on long enough. Why not just negotiate and be done with it? There is no point in carrying on this stalemate for longer," a man on the radio said.

"Yes, Mr Kreuger, that may be so," said the host, "But the military said that if we surrender, the Coalition will not stop at a few planets ceded. He said that they will do it to all of the planets in the Federation!"

"Rubbish! The Coalition can be convinced into peace!"

Someone throws a bottle at the radio.

"Coalition spy!"

"Coalie symp!"

"Kill him!"

The room erupts into a cacophony of shouts, and an MP on patrol acts.

"Quiet!" he shouts, and fires his gun into the air from the doorway. "Quiet for the love of god! And the next man to throw something gets thrown in the brig for unruly behaviour!"

"Alright then, thank you for spending some of my time with us, Mr Kreuger," said the radio host. "Now, for all you defenders of Turia, here's a little special for you. We've got 'Route triple-six' by Derrick's Devils for you, right here, right now! Hit it!"

 _Living easy, on the road to hell,_

 _I know that my mates have got my back_

 _Stick up for each other, one for all:_

 _Cause in this wakin' nightmare they're all you got!_

Dan- In Country

 _From the terrorized streets that the mobsters roam!_

 _to strange alien worlds on the Galactic Front!_

 _I know I c'n stay strong_

' _til the job's been done!_

 _Through Route Triple-Six, yeah, yeah!_

 _Away from yer home and into a nightmare!_

 _We gotta rise out of this dark pit!_

 _We will survive this, yeah, yeah!_

'Route triple-six' plays loudly as my APC trundles down the dusty track. You are accompanying a Traxissian battalion on their combat operations, on a so-called 'Ethnic Co-operation Mission' where battalions with two different ethnic majorities co-operate with each other. For example, the colonists of Traxis came mostly from a pre-collapse nation that called itself 'The United States of America', while those from Turia came from a group of Old World nations called the 'Commonwealth'. You are currently co-operating with the 23rd Mechanized Cavalry.

 _This is a long road, a highway to hell!_

 _The grass trodden underfoot by those who came before!_

 _Nothing is left for us to lose!_

 _Ya gotta close my eyes up and pretend you feel well!_

 _Think about momma, think about my friend!_

 _Anything other than the nightmare you see!_

 _We've got a job to do: a battle to fight!_

 _Knowin' only one thing: you're done if you bend!_

The dust flies up out of the tracks of the APC. A M-109 Herring drives in front, carrying a flail-type minesweeper device. My squad mates are sitting inside the APC, while you, Arthur and frank get the curious position of staying on top of the APC, on the roof. Why is it a curious position? Well, if, say, a rocket hits the side walls of an APC, or a mine detonates underneath the APC, then you won't get shredded by flying shrapnel. When the time comes for you to disembark, you will jump off, then run along with the men of the 23rd Mechanized. The flail spins and spins. Then, a flail detonates a mine, sending up a spray of sand. You are somewhat puzzled at the 23rd's strategies. At tac-school on Turia, they taught you about stealthy approaches, surprise attacks, and not letting the enemy know about you until the very last moment. Then you swoop in for the kill. Machine gun the enemy bases of fire. Keep with them until you see the last god-damn Coaler fall into the grass and spill his guts on the floor. The Traxissians seem to be simply charging into battle with no sense of strategy. Just playing 'Route triple six' on the stereo loudly.

 _Through Route Triple-Six, yeah, yeah!_

 _Away from yer home and into a nightmare!_

 _We gotta rise out of this dark pit!_

 _We will survive this, yeah, yeah!_

The men in the turret tense. You look around. The convoy appears to be entering a forest.

"Do you normally do this?" you asked one of the turret gunners.

"Yup. Every Goldarn time we come out here," he said. "Goin' into the trees, and catchin' us some roast Coaler for dinner"

"No, I mean to asked whether you play music every single time you get out here," you say. "blokes in our strategy department say that we're supposed to rely on silence and covert tactics."

"Well, my strat-beau must be ravin' mad!" he said. "Naw, we rely on shock and awe, that's what the Sergeant Major called it. You gotta let the Damn Coalers know that you're here to bring the rain, scare them, then come in guns blazing!"

"Uh, what's a strat-beau?" you asked.

"Strategy bureau, or whatever you call your strategy think-tank,"

The man then turns his turret around, looking to the other side. The APCs in front have recently been outfitted with Modular Remote-Controlled Weapon Mounts (MRCWMs), a revolutionary technology being rolled out of the testing facilities at China Lake on Earth and Frunze, one of the planets colonized by the CIS in the late 21st century. They are queer things, short, octagonal and look like they are made of diamond-shaped bits of metal welded together. There are two on each APC. One has a module containing dual 13.2mm machine guns. The other has a single 25mm cannon. Looking at my APC, it has been retrofitted with all manner of accessories. Some sharpened stakes are bolted on to the front and sides of the APC. Four in front, seven on the sides. There is a net hung between those sharpened stakes. The turret gunner mans an open turret, unlike the unmanned, remote-controlled turrets the other APCs have. His turret is fitted with a 40mm automatic grenade launcher. You look at the rear turret. Frank is sitting next to it, and he nods at you. Arthur is sitting next to him, looking up at the forest canopy. You look back at the rear turrets. There are two of them, sitting opposite to each other. Manned, of course. They are slightly smaller, but have 7.62mm rotary cannons fitted. Loud.

There is a big door on the top of the APC. They seem to open outwards. what could they be for?

The APC trundles on, through the undergrowth.

You turn to the turret gunner to asked why the APC is so different to the other APCs, when suddenly, someone screams.

"Contact!" another man shouts.

Machine gun fire rips through the trees. The doors on the other APCs open, and soldiers run out. The unmanned MRCWMs start firing. You can hear the signature sound of 25mm cannon shells detonating, and the sound of men and coalers screaming. You hear rifles bark. The turret gunners are firing. The 40mm grenade launcher pumps its fire towards the enemy. The rotary blows its raspberry into the trees. In bursts. The big doors on my APC open, revealing the black gunmetal of an 81mm mortar, and out of the back door… Coalers?

You scream, and the turret gunner said,

"Naw, man, them Coalers won't hurt you!" he shouts over the sound of the rotary cannon. "They're regionals! Defectors pressed into service!"

The mortar fires into the undergrowth, and the round detonates in a group of coalers. The rounds are devastatingly accurate.

"This is Golf-Tango-X-ray two-three, calling Romeo-Hotel-Nine-eight-seven!" the turret gunner shouts.

"Hello, Harry! What d'ye want, lad?"

"Shut up and maintain radio discipline! We got some targets for you!"

"Name it and I'll burn it!"

"Okay. We got a target at lat six-five-point-oh-three-nine, long nine-eight-point-eight-three-two! Line between Pink Smoke! Pink Smoke!"

"Roger that, Pink Smoke,"

The gunner loads smoke grenades, and he fires. Twice.

They crash into the undergrowth, and burst, releasing pink smoke.

An aeroplane roars over. Then a wall of flame erupts in the forest. Pine trees and various conifers start to fall. Burning Coalers run out of the undergrowth screaming.

"Happy, Harry?" the man in the aircraft askeds.

"Maintain radio discipline, for gawd's sake! And thanks, you dummy."

"No problem-o, mate. Keep it up down there."

The radio cuts to static.

The turret gunner sighs, and then grabs a microphone.

"Alright, everyone! Count the bodies and let's get the hell outta Dodge!" he shouts.

The Coalers are counted, and the men start to walk back to the APC, and then more coalers start dropping from the sky. Or more accurately, start fast-lining down from helicopters and hovercraft.

They fire their assault rifles down at the men of the 23rd.

Men go down under the hail of rifle fire.

The turret gunner grabs a rifle and starts shooting.

Logical. A 40mm grenade launcher was not designed for work against paratroopers, after all. The rotary cannon fires upwards, cutting down a few of the Coalers as they plummet down.

The first of the Coalers lands on the forest floor. Then another. And another. And another. Then, the turret gunner grabs his grenade launcher, spins it around, and fires.

It lands in the middle of a group of coalers.

Enemy rifles chatter, and little twinkling orange lights can be seen. A bullet ricochets off the armour plating on the APC.

You jump off, de-holstering my machine gun by pulling it off my backpack full of a belt of ammunition.

You grab it and start firing standing up, swinging it side to side. You have a belt of 7.62mm Armour-piercing Incendiary ammunition wrapped around my torso and in my backpack, and you feel it moving as ammunition gets used up.

The machine gun fire shreds the Coalers coming at you.

Coalers fall.

Coalers scream.

Bullets fly past you and impact the armour of the APC.

The machine gun chatters.

A bullet grazes my shoulder.

And then, after about thirty seconds of continuous firing, the Coalers stop coming, and you stop firing.

You breathe heavily, holding my machine gun. The barrel is smoking.

A coaler, with its masked trailing behind it, crawls up to you, and grabs my leg. The rear part of its helmet is still on, and then it looks up at you.

The face is human.

You look at it without sympathy.

"Kill… me… Puhh-puhh-puhh-leease…" it groans.

You close my eyes, and pull the trigger.

Rick- First Contact

You look at an Amphyrade on the far side of the field. The last of the silver all-metal finish aircraft. The other aircraft are being coloured grey. The newer Amphyrades stand on the other side of the airfield. They are painted grey. They have larger engines, and a new modular gun system installed. The modular gun system is made for quick-change operation. The aircraft has clamps on the underside to put guns on. The guns can be switched, and currently the available choices are the single 30mm cannon, and the 23mm Gast cannon known as the 'Dashka'. The recommended installation is one Dashka and one 30mm, but people usually group aircraft into strike escort groups, where one aircraft is equipped specifically for air-to-ground, and the others are equipped for the air-to-air role. So, one quarter of all aircraft are equipped with two Dashkas, while three quarters are equipped with two thirty-millimetre guns, for air-to-air duties. Apparently, there will be 40mm grenade launchers ready by the end of the year. You look at the aircraft that you wish to fly in, and think about flying in the air, but then eject the thought from my head. If you did transfer, you'd have to do it with Fred. Amphyrades are single-pilot aircraft, but fly in formation.

The Amphyrades have changed a lot this year. Their tail fins have gotten larger, their landing gear has changed, and the built-in guns and gun pack mountings have been removed. The single large bomb bay has been removed, having been designed in favour of two smaller ordnance bays. Nearly all the AH-264s have been retired now. The venerable chopper has reached the end of its service life. You will miss the helicopter. You miss the sound of contra-rotating blades and the whirring of the large turbine at the end which pushed it along.

The final Amphyrade mark I is the only one with an all-metal finish.

It is very strange, seeing how quickly the aircraft are chopped and changed. The AH-264E variant has been retired due to its inability to use internal guns, and the D-variant still flies due to a lack of a suitable Close Air Support (CAS) aircraft. Although the Amphyrade has taken over the strike role, it is too fast. It is also doing Forward Air Control (FAC) duties for now, at least until the XO-19 and the XA-44 are pushed from development into the field testing phase, and from thereon they will do FAC and CAS duties. The large, heavy, FAC-dedicated E-16 Thetis's are too large for this airbase, and plus, they'd be shot down by the Coalition, who maintain a heavy aerial presence in the area, but also have SAMs installed everywhere. You hear the roar of jet engines as the last of the mark IIs land on the base.

Tomorrow you will head out for 36 hours rec leave at one of the cities. With Fred, of course. You never go anywhere without him. Brothers need to stick together, after all. To the hotels in New Vegas. And then sleep in a real bed. With sheets, of course. Get a drink, buy some cards… then tell him about my decision to transfer?

A machine gun fires from somewhere behind you. A bullet flies past you, and destroys the MK1 Amphyrade parked in front of you. A Coalition VTOL aircraft hovers in the air, and you run. The VTOL aircraft starts methodically destroying everything. First the fuel silos. The aircraft fires its bullets at the fuel tanks to the side of the airfield. The helipads are the next to go. The enemy fires a few rockets, and one by one, the helicopters blow up. By now, the Anti-aircraft defences have been pulled out of the sheds. A truck with a 40mm cannon mounted on the back rolls up, and fires.

Shell cartridges clatter on the ground after it fires a six-round burst at the enemy aircraft. The shells crash into the aircraft's unarmoured belly, and detonate. The aircraft spirals down and crashes on the ground. And… something comes out. This is my first experience with a 'Xeno' and you simply don't know what to do. It is an insectoid. It has six legs, and walks like a praying mantis. Its fourth leg is bleeding. You approach the xeno, and stagger back. It broadcasts a clear image in my mind saying, 'get away'. Telepathy? No, pheromones.

You stagger forward ignoring the message. The injectable foam syrette is in my pocket. You decide to use it. The xeno's leg is about fifteen centimetres wide. The xeno looks at you, afraid. Another image floods through my mind. A demonized version of a human eating it. You try to broadcast an image. You concentrate on a single image. A picture of you healing it, and stopping the bleeding. It… doesn't seem to work. It still radiates mental messages of pain, distress and fear. You go up, and quickly inject the foam. The foam expands, and blocks up the wound. No more blue blood falls from its wounded, broken leg. The final message you get is one of relief, before it collapses.

Well, that wasn't as bad as it could have been.

You sigh in relief, and shout for the orderlies.

They lift the Xeno up, and take it to the medbay in the brig.

"Well this'll be funny," said Fred, by my side. "Imagine the guards askeding, 'what would you like to eat?' and it can't say anything! Hah!"

"Jeez, Fred, it isn't dumb," you say. "It talks using pheromones, not verbally."

Fred laughs.

"Stop hallucinating," he chuckles. "Xenos can't talk, unless it's some smart little Xeno, in which case it won't be able to, 'because we'll have turned it into a little pile of black ash."

Fred's weird that way sometimes.

Fred- Rec leave in N.V.

The neon signs of New Vegas shine and glow. The lightbulbs of a New Vegas Bar glow orange. You've been here since seven A.M. earth time. Something happened, and you and Rick parted ways. You went walkabout around the city, looking around at the houses, streets and going into some of the better casinos. The bloody xenos are everywhere, living in the houses, serving as security guards- even the best and largest casino is owned by a goddamn Xeno. Xenos live with humans, Xenos work with humans, Xenos employ humans. You read a newspaper with up-to-date news for the first time. It said that the military was recruiting Xenos into the army now! You cannot believe this!

"Why recruit xenos into the army when they are going to stab you in the back once the war is over?" you say aloud in the bar. The people near you look at you, irritated by how loud you are more than what you said. You are drinking some heavy stuff tonight. A cocktail of gin and vodka. Although Rick and Captain Yellin haven't figured it out yet, you have been taking drinks that have been getting steadily stronger. The first time after Nal'irathika. And then some. The bartender at the mess won't give you really strong drinks, but while on rec leave, you can get whatever the hell you want. You don't know why you're taking whisky with gin at the moment- right now you're distracted by my drink, and the world is hazy- but you know it has something to do with Rick. A man sits down next to you.

"Hate Xenos, eh?" he askeds. "And keep my voice down, everyone can hear you."

"How does it concern you?" you asked. "You ain't a Feddo or police,"

That is for sure. The man is a civilian, wearing a suit. Probably a businessman.

"Well… I'm an activist of sorts," he said, "And I don't really like the xenos."

"Yeah, you can say that again. All those little idiots are good for is scrubbin' the sewers. Bloody Xenos, stealing our jobs and telling us to piss the hell out of our homes. They should be telling that to us, begging us and grovelling at our feet. We deserve the stars. They deserve excrement and mud at our feet. They're just backstabbing, lying traitors who'll try to kill us at the end of the war."

"Yes, I agree."

"And the big, good, benevolent federation is recruiting them into the army! I mean, there's got to be a limit! Maybe just a few office clerks, but a full unit of Xenos or a mixed battalion? That's just silly! Absurd! Raving mad! Are they trying to steal our jobs?"

"Yes, and what you just said is actually one of the reasons I joined the… activists group I am in right now."

"Why not go talk with my little secret kiddie club then?"

"You don't understand. We need men like you."

"Why?"

"Something big is going to happen after the war. That's all I can say."

"What, a little backyard kiddie protest?"

"No. we need some military personnel from the Federation."

"Why?"

"Because of the things we will do after the war ends. We need an insider. Someone who knows standard tactics. Someone proficient in warfare. Someone proficient in using Federation weapons, and knows their weaknesses and strengths like the back of their hand. We are going to have a long, dark road ahead of us, and we need people like you to get to the light at the end."

"I'm an airman, not a soldier."

"The group I represent doesn't care. We need fighting men like you."

"Just tell me what you guys are, okay? I'm not going on some wild goose chase without information on the damn chase."

"It's… classified."

He hands you a card.

"Here. Take this. After the war's over, call me."

Then he leaves as quickly as he came, and you continue drinking, and eventually Rick drags you out after a few hours.

The sky weeps- Dan

December 23rd, 2104. The Rainy season. Or to the locals, Dô urégû ákõl'óai Kah'lai, literally meaning 'Season of the Cleaners'. A season of bountiful crops for the people here, but also of floods. The most dangerous season of the year. In the summer, the savannah and deserts of Sarayonar are infested by armoured lizards and giant predatory reptilians, while the lush grasslands and forests are full of predatory reptilians and giant insect-like animals. During the rainy season monsters from the depths of the sea come up to the surface and prey on anything unfortunate enough to be roaming the upper layers of the sea. Including submarines, boats and other sea creatures. The fields flood, and giant amphibians (the Kah'lai) come out of the rivers and eat anything they find. Wagooks (the local equivalent to cows on Earth), men and even the deadly Sarayonian Raptor, which lives in the lush tundra. The Kah'lai are revered by the locals, and they believe that the Kah'lai come out of the water to cleanse the lands of evil. You sit in the bunker. His cloak is wrapped around him, and he shivers, bringing a few water droplets down. He bought it on leave in Diamantina Lakes, and it is a luxury in the cold winds and sweeping rain. The rainy season is one of the most dangerous seasons, they say. There are some reasons which are obvious, what, with the rain and flooding and all that. No air support from the Air Force, which was basically the lifeblood of the army up until now. No aerial resup. No casevacs. Resup convoys only at the rare times when rain did not fall. Morale low. At least the Coalers don't attack. Often, that is. The aircraft are grounded. You can't even see nine metres ahead in the rain and fog, and heat sensors are messed up. The wind would blow any reconnaissance aircraft into a different location to the intended one. GPS does not work (the wind prevents signals getting through clearly). An attack is pretty much impossible, and the Coalers' satellites were all but annihilated during the first year of the offensive in 2103. The anti-satellite batteries on the planet shoot down any satellites launched which come within a 600-mile range of the landing zones.

flac-flac-flac-flac-flac-flac

You can hear a helicopter coming.

Flac-flac-flac-flac-flac-flac-flac-flac

Wait. A helicopter? How?

So, you get on the phone to flight control.

"Alexandria tower, bunker four calling in, are there any incoming flights scheduled today?" you asked.

"Negative, bunker four," is the prompt replied. "No flights today."

"Roger Alexandria. Bunker four out," you say.

You call up HQ.

"This is bunker four, I have audio contact on a possible bogey, impossible to get a visual,"

"Roger. Bunker four, please identify enemy."

"One possible bogey, possibly more, getting closer, estimate 100 yards, advise Triple-A defences readied."

"Roger, bunker four, wilco,"

You can hear the enemy getting closer. The helicopter's blades can be heard more distinctly now. It's not a helicopter, now that you can see it. It is some kind of tilt-wing aircraft. Definitely not friendly.

Four are on approach towards the base.

Ramps open, they come in closer. You get a better look. They have ball-shaped turrets on the sides. They start rotating, swivelling and depressing. The guns are trained on the closest bunkers. Mys and bunker five.

They start firing. They flash once, and everything in a small area burns. The turrets gyrate and spin around, redirecting the beam. The beam fires in five-to-ten second bursts, stopping when fire is redirected.

The clashes of 90mm guns firing fills the air, drowning out the buzz of the beams.

Black smudges appear around the tiltrotors as they fly in. the beam turrets swivel, and start firing in the direction of the 90mm turrets. Time to shine.

The machine gun is mounted on a pintle mount. Facing forward, they are made to target anyone or anything which is within firing range. Using the HA/LA mount, it is ready for everything. You line up the sights with a beam turret, and fire a five-second burst.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

The gun shakes with the recoil.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

The sound echoes through the bunker. Small sparks flicker on the covering of the glass ball turrets on the gunships.

 _Crack!_

A bullet gets through without ricocheting. The turret starts swivelling around.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

The gunship itself turns around and faces you and my bunker.

 _Choom!_

A 90mm shell rips the air in front of you, hitting the gunship and blasting it to pieces.

A beam hits the ground directly in front of my bunker. Another gunship materialises out of the fog and rain.

Another 90mm burst. Three rounds.

Right on target.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

Machinegun fire rips through the fog and rain, aimed at the ball turrets. The barrel smokes.

HEIAP rounds whistle through the air.

A shell clashes into the breech a 90mm gun as the SPAAG drives up.

The dual guns fire, and expel smoke sideways from their muzzle brakes, like bulls snorting before charging.

Although the fearsome storm of fire destroys some of the tilt-rotors, some aircraft get in. some aircraft fly in, and start making attack passes.

Radio chatter goes wild.

"crrrz… incoming tanks at… crrr…-ence point a-19 crr… artillery heavy…"

"They've got everything! Tanks and planes and everything! Help! Please!"

Coalers approach. A coaler gets really close to my bunker, and you swivel around and fire a HEIAP round in its face. Its head explodes, sending blood and associated viscera everywhere.

"Redwood nineteen, this is Orenda eighty-four, state location for strike, over."

"Redwood nineteen to Orenda eighty-four, Popping red smoke, over. Popping red smoke!"

A red smoke goes off in front of you, near one of the foxholes about to be overrun. Did that guy call in an airstrike on his own position?

An Amphyrade comes in, and fires its guns and rockets just in front of the smoke grenade. Coalers fly up into then air as the rockets explode. The Coalers look funny as they fly up in the air, looking like they are breakdancing in the air. Then they come down. Bits of leg rain down.

The SPAAG blows up in a ball of flame. Streaks of white smoke cut through the sky and explode when they hit the 90mm batteries. Rockets? An aircraft screeches over, with blue engine trails. Coalition. Yeah, they've fired more rockets. The rockets then seem to burst mid-air, and rain small black objects.

Cluster munitions.

They impact close to the anti-aircraft batteries, and detonate. Hundreds of small explosions rock the ground. The ammo storage goes up in a ball of flame.

The 90mm batteries are down.

Four aircraft start coming down. The same build of aircraft as before, but this time approaching the foxholes. They have strange objects mounted on them. The strange objects have two fins, and look curiously like drop tanks. the first aircraft makes its bombing run. One, two, three tanks fall. The aircraft streaks over the bunker, and you spray it with return HEIAP fire when there is an almighty burst of orange flame in front of the foxholes. Men dance a strange dance, shaking their arms, running, rolling. Anything to get away from the flames. Anything to get the flames off.

Another aircraft. Another barrel from hell.

Then, a funnily shaped barrel drops right in front of my bunker, and hisses. You swear and grab my gas masked, putting it on. Then a yellow cloud starts seeping out.

Napalm and gas.

Great.

Encompasses Coalition Galaxy-wide Total War Protocol Phase One.

A transcription of diary entries, and interviews with Corporal Daniel 'Chatterin' Dan' Raleigh, M.I.D., D.S.O., M.H., Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves, Sakura and Rubies. Squadron Leader Richard 'Ricky-tick' Raleigh, D.S.O., Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves and Sakura, M.H., Order of the Federation, 1st class, Silver Star. Squadron Leader Frederick 'Flaming Freddy' Raleigh, Cross of the Federation with Oak Leaves, Sakura and Rubies, D.S.O., Silver Star News reports written by Andrew 'Dandy Andy' Raleigh.

2105-2108: The Sunset of Fire and the First Night.

Volume Two of the Written History of the Great Intergalactic War

22/8/2105

 **SUNSET OF FIRE BEGINS ON ATILAN FRONT** Morning Bugle

By Andrew Raleigh.

On a hill without a name, and known only to High command as 'Hill 119,' at a Forward Operations Airbase called Hell's Gate, the personnel restlessly prepare for another unforgiving sunset.

The sunset is known as the Sunset of Fire, because the picturesque skies are as orange as a blazing fire- but also because of the black and orange streaks dotting the sky, which are aircraft getting shot down.

Hell's Gate is located at a strategic location, near the intersection of several road routes leading to the front lines, but it is also close enough to the enemy to be able to launch strikes against the enemy.

The proximity to the lines makes it a good place to view the constant barrage of Surface-to-air missiles and anti-aircraft gunfire.

Green pencil lines of tracer mark where anti-aircraft artillery is going, while white streaks rapidly rising from the ground mark where Surface-to-air missiles are flying upwards.

During the Sunset of Fire, it is a common occurrence that four or five aircraft go out, and only

 **GUARANTEED SERVICE WITHIN JUST 10 MINUTES!**

NEED SOMETHING QUICK AND CHEAP?  
TIRED OF WAITING IN LONG QUEUES FOR HOURS?

THEN BUY FROM _**XTRA-MART!**_

1

two or three come back.

More often than not, pilots and Rear Instrument Operators (or RIOs) come back injured or crippled, and sometimes come back dead.

The operations are dangerous, the hours are long, sometimes lasting up to eight or nine hours for a single escort mission or a single bombing sortie, and most of the aircrew don't even understand why they're flying the operation.

But when I asked a pair of aircrew why they went out on missions, I got a blunt reply.

"It's our duty," said Pilot Officer Arthur Beaton, sipping at a bottle of sarsaparilla. "And I ain't got time to figure out why I'm doing what I do."

His brother, Pilot Officer Fred Raleigh, had a comment to add to that.

"I think {*censored*} like us are supposed to shut up and just do whatever they're ordered to do."

It has been close to three years since the last sunset, and everyone is on edge.

I asked around, and I got the following response from Squadron Leader E. Yellin of the 15th army support squadron.

"The night lasts for two years out here," he said while having some sarsaparilla in the officer's mess (bar room). "In that two years, the Coalition gathers its offensive assets and uses them in night operations."

Indeed, losses are high, and the hours are long, but the brave pilots of squadrons like the 673rd Tactical Fighter Squadron 'Firebreathers'.

 _Cont. pg. 4_

An exclusive report from the front lines on Atilan A Sunset of Fire-Rick

The sun of Atilan had started setting, it is orange. So very orange. In that month, the enemy has rolled out what seems to be a million guns for each cubic centimetre of airspace. You don't need a sun or a moon: the skies above the lines are bright enough. Blue searchlights dart across the skies to the east, and orange comets, barely discernible from the orange skies above, show where aircraft have been shot down.

The Sunset of Fire has truly begun.

The alarm buzzes.

"Enemy formation incoming! All available aircraft, scramble!" shouts the man on the PA.

Cards are thrown down. Cigarettes are thrown into ashtrays. People run across the airfield towards their aircraft. The grease monkeys fill up the aircraft with fuel and assorted ordnance. One fuel tank on each centreline rack. six MR/AAAM AA-37 'Matchbox' and eight SR/AAAM AIM-19 Rattlesnakes to my aircraft. You look at the assortment of aircraft around you. The multi-colony squadron is indeed a motley collection of twenty-four different aircraft, differing in paint scheme and make. There's one other Amphyrade other than mys. There's an old Ti-Fah-19A, the mount of the only female pilot in the squadron, Alexis, It is emblazoned with the Federation roundel and sporting the nose art of a recurve bow drawn back and ready to fire arrows. It is stylised so that it looks like a heart. The red symbol is on every possible place. One on each wing. One on each side of the tail, and one on the centre-section. the ground crew scramble clear as you signal them to stand clear. The, you taxi out onto the tarmac.

There is a PA-12 Tweet II behind you. An aircraft designed for COIN, it has extremely good low-altitude and what it lacks for in high-altitude performance, it makes up for in sheer amount of ordnance. The pilot is called 'Dasher' due to his proficiency in hit-and-run tactics. He shoots an aircraft, and then runs, heading downwards. If the shots fired do not kill, the enemy aircraft is at least damaged, or baited to go downwards into the Tweet II's natural low-altitude environment. At lower altitudes, at lower speeds, the aircraft can outperform any aircraft with a dazzling combination of tail slides, lightning-fast zooms and immelmanns.

The people say that civvies call you the 'Midnight Fire' due to my unique paint scheme, flames on a midnight blue body. You've heard unbelievable stories about my feats, including one about how you supposedly downed fifteen aircraft in a single mission. Not true. Fifteen aircraft fell in smoke, but of a flight of three, you returned alone. twelve aircraft were downed that day, and only five by you. The other pilot got six, and the last pilot got one before going down.

You taxi out to the runaway, in front of my section.

Alexis behind.

Johnno behind her.

"Red Section, Oxford calling, clear for take-off,"

"Wilco," you replied.

You open the throttle. Flaps on 'Take-off' mode. The aircraft roars down the runway. The dual turbofans push my plane down the runway, and then as you feel the aeroplane start to rise, you adjust myself in my seat.

 _10 feet, fifty feet, one hundred feet…_

The altimeter hits one-fifty. You pull the stick towards you slowly.

 _Two hundred… three hundred… four-fifty…_

You keep climbing.

 _Seven hundred, eight hundred, nine hundred…_

The altimeter spins. Power levels optimal. Oil pressure OK. Temperature rising, but within acceptable levels.

 _Twelve hundred, sixteen hundred…_

You press the button to put the gears up.

 _Eighteen hundred, two thousand, two thousand two hundred…_

You level out.

"Ararat to Nimbus one, vector, ah, oh-three-five, fifty kays, angels two, intercept enemy attack formation, heading oh-three-oh, speed three-hunner knots."

"Rog-ee-oh, Ararat, moving to intercept course," you replied. "ETA thirty minutes,"

The squadron cruises towards the enemy. Sections form up. Sections of two, formations of four.

"Ops in an amphy… Ops in an amphy… who'll come on ops in an amphy with me?" you sing silently.

"Now the first silly blighter, he opened to full, sped down the runway fast and free… and he sang as he swang and pranged on the boundary, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me?"

The squadron is silent.

You decide to shut up.

You fly in silence for a few minutes, then someone said,

"Keep singing, sir,"

"Ops in an amphy, ops in an amphy, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me, he sang as he swang and pranged the boundary, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me?"

"The second silly blighter, he got off the deck alright, didn't get to the trenches and ditched in the sea, and he sang as he swam all up and down the coast again, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me?"

"Ops in an amphy, ops in an amphy, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me, he sang as he swam up and down the coast again, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me?"

"The third silly blighter, he got to the trenches, and up came the flak like a Christmas tree, and he sang as he popped his canopy, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me?

"Ops in an amphy, ops in an amphy, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me, and he sang as he popped his canopy, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me?"

"The fourth silly blighter, he got over point 'B', and up came them fighters, one, two and three, and he sang as he got himself into a power dive, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me?"

"Ops in an amphy, ops in an amphy, who'll come on ops in an amphy with me, and his RIO sang as he went into a power dive, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me?"

"Engines to three o'clock low," someone said.

"Copy that," said another.

You keep singing.

"The last silly bastard, he got home alright. They gave him a clear but couldn't find the tee. So, he sang as he came and landed on a hangar roof, who'll come on ops in an Amphy with me!"

You shout the last word as you push the throttle up and close in on the enemy fighters.

"Range three thousand," you say, "Aircraft are Ti-Fah nineteen Dees with missiles and Ti-Fah Twenty-Five F's with CFTs."

And so, they are.

"Red two here, the aircraft are in two layers, the nineteens up topsides with missiles, and the twenty-fives down low.

"Green and Yellow sections, engage the strike fighters, Blue and Red go for the fighters. No. 1 attack go!"

"Ararat here, enemies ETA five minutes to target. Repeat: ETA five minutes," crackles the radio.

"Roger, Ararat, moving to engage. All sections, drop my tanks. Red and blue sections, volley fire heat-seekers into the fighters," you say, "fox two!"

You fire six heat-seeking missiles, then hang back a little. So do the others. Twenty-nine white streaks of smoke fly through the sky.

Nineteen explosions. Nineteen hits out of twenty-nine.

"Squadron, charge!" you shout, and you accelerate straight into the enemy formation.

"Bloody Turian Radio Discipline," someone said, chuckling. "Oh wait, it doesn't exist."

My squadron tears into the enemy fighters, guns blazing.

Radio chatter goes crazy.

"Watch out for those ventral rockets!"

"Mickey, cover me, I'm gonna go for another pass on the strike fighters,"

"Kay, shin, but you owe me a nice, cold-"

"Deploying flares!"

"Guns, guns, guns!"

"Fox three!"

"Die you green-skin-"

"Fox one!"

"Dammit dammit dammit dammit dammit…"

"Break right!"

"Guns, guns, guns!"

"Aircraft to my right, Happy!"

"Bah! I'm not blind!"

You chase an aircraft of my own.

"I've got you now," you mutter as you close in on a target.

The lock tone crackles in my ear.

 _Tick… tick… tick… tick-tick-tick-tick_

You press the button, and a heat-seeking missile blasts off towards the fighter.

You don't see the fighter go down, since you bank immediately after shooting to attack another target.

 _Meep-meep!_

A red light lights up on my HUD. it flashes the word 'AAM'. seeking missile launch.

Dammit.

You see the smoke of the launch from a fighter behind you.

You dive hard, pulling negative 3 gees, then climb up sharply, pulling eight positive gees and deploying chaff and flares on the way. The missile is unable to follow through, and it streaks off elsewhere.

"Ararat here, heads-up on target coming head-on towards my position, bearing one-seven-nine, over,"

"Wilco," you replied. "Red section, on me! We're gonna go check something,"

You fly out of the main battle, hoping that my friends will somehow be with you.

Only one fighter takes formation beside you. An FB-19 _Overwatch_.

"Hey, John, where's Alexis?" you asked.

"She went down," comes the curt replied, "And I didn't see a 'chute."

"Okay," you replied.

Sometimes, like now, deaths are really detached. You can't really connect to the death or even feel sad because, well, the death was too quick. And it was too sudden.

Sometimes you feel sick and hate myself for not being sad. But normally you're too busy to think.

In air combat, thinking must be honed to instinct. What you do in a split-second will have huge consequences, including whether you live to see the next second.

The afterburner flame glows blue in the sunset.

"Hey, Rick, ya see that?" John askeds.

A huge sillouhette in the orange of the sunset.

"Damn, that's huge!" you exclaim.

And it is. It's a giant aircraft. A bomber plane. It's not escorted. It has three big engines, all in the back. It's got swept wings, and a large tail fin and stabilizers. It is wide but short, giving it the appearance of a dugong. The engines glow purple.

"Nimbus one to Ararat, target visually identified as enemy bomber, moving to intercept," you say, and you move to intercept.

First, you climb high, and dive to supersonic while rolling. You time it so that you go supersonic next to the bomber's rear turret. This manoeuvre usually kills or stuns biologicals inside.

You turn and approach from the rear to fire a heat-seeking missile. It's almost guaranteed to hit such a big target with such a big heat signature.

Then hell seems to break loose. Bullets pour out of the enemy aircraft, and green tracers streak across the sky.

The bomber's turrets criss-cross their fire, and you madly roll across the orange sky.

"John, if you're gonna take a shot, take it now!" you scream. You can't keep rolling any longer.

Then, there is an ominous clatter of bullets across my left wing. A string of holes appears, and my aircraft feels sluggish. You fight to keep it flying level.

Two missiles streak across the sky, and smash into the left wing of the bomber. Half of the wing splinters off and cartwheels wildly across the sky, while the bomber slowly descends. Down, down, down it goes, and it slams into the ground. A sheet of flame rises from the crash site.

"Yo, rick, are ya okay?" askeds John, who takes up formation beside you, "Ya got smoke comin' out of ya plane."

"Where? I can't see it," you say, panicked.

"Down under, near my belly," he replied.

 _Dammit_ , you think.

"Red One, this is Blue two, come in, Red One," the radio crackles.

"Blue two, this is Red one, report on status, please,"

"The enemy raiders have gone over the line, yellow section is chasing them over,"

"Okay then. Call yellow section back, and let's head home."

And so you fly off to the west, towards the setting sun.

And then one engine gives out.

It coughs, splutters and turns off. There is a huge drop in airspeed. You go from 800 to 600 in a split-second. My altitude starts dropping.

The plane drops.

 _Fifteen thousand, fourteen thousand five hundred, fourteen thousand…_

"Rick, ditch! Ditch, mate, before it's too late!" screams John.

"Poppin' canopy," you say, pulling the hood. The canopy leaps off, and you feel the cold air blowing around you. You push the throttle down.

 _Twelve thousand, eleven thousand, ten thousand, eight thousand…_

The lines are directly ahead of you.

 _Six thousand, four thousand, two thousand…_

You pull the red lever next to my seat. Then the rockets fire. You can barely hear it over the sound of the wind, but you feel myself being carried up, up and away from my stricken aircraft. The parachute opes a few seconds after the rockets quit firing. The now pilotless plane crashes in no man's land between the two trenches.

Underneath, you can see men crawling slowly towards the enemy trenches. Artillery shells fall down and hit the crawling figures.

You fall downwards towards the ground. Down you go, in the slipstream. Towards the ground, and safety.

I got back on my side of the lines that time.

I didn't have to suffer.

No wonder the squadron called 'The Walking Rabbit's Foot'.

But how much longer would my luck last?

Hill 909- Freddy

Hill 909. The final stronghold of Coalition resistance behind Federation lines. It's suicide to even get close to there because the enemy have their artillery zeroed on the approach through the el-em-gee nests. At night, if a stray bomber flies over, it is shot down in a ball of flame. ground assaults are out of the question. The place is under siege, but the artillery in the fort send out massive barrages lasting up to a minute. Hundreds of assaults have attempted to take the fort. Half a squadron of aircraft has been lost trying to attack the fort. There seems to be a tunnel system that resupplies the fort with supplies. And now, some idiot in high command has had the idea of sending in several hundred troops behind enemy lines to get into the tunnels, navigate down to hill 909, destroy the enemy batteries, open the doors and let the other forces swarm into the fort. Simple, right?

Well, not really. The high command loonies seem to have forgotten the part about getting past the billions of guns that man every inch of the line. The Slavic Death squadron has had you, hand-picked by the squadron leader as the 'best pilot in the whole damn squadron' transferred to a gunship variant of the UH-28 _Ranger_. it's now my mission to insert a special operations team behind enemy lines and get the hell out again.

The UH-28 _Ranger_ was the workhorse of the helicopter force. Old strong, and as venerable as the UH-1 Huey from the previous century, these aircraft would have been retired in 2103 until it was found that these helicopters were more silent than the new UH-30 that was meant to replace it.

Freddy sat waiting on the helipad for the soldiers to board. Those soldiers had been here since the First Invasion, and hadn't been away since. They have an empty look in their eyes and with trembling hands, they lit cigarettes and played cards with each other. A sudden noise, like a wrench dropping on the floor, or a helicopter starting up, startled them, and they slowly turned their heads towards the source of the noise. When they were sure that it wasn't something dangerous they go back to what they were doing before.

And soon, at 1900 Standard Time, they will climb into the UH-28, and you'll fly them into the darkness, and across the lines.

By knocking down that fort, all the alien bastards would go away from his home.

Someone nudged him.

"It's time," the person muttered.

Looking at his watch, Fred saw that it wa` s 1830 hours ST.

You stride across the concrete of the base, and climb into the tight cockpit.

He flipped switches, and perform the pre-flight checks. Engines at optimum. Hydraulics good. Power levels okay,

Dreams- Dan

Dan sat upright inside the foxhole. My clothes are wet. My lower half is completely submerged in water. You can hear the sounds of battle around you.

Chattering machine guns.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

The repetitive ' _Whee-thump!'_ of mortar and artillery shells.

The 'Choom!' of artillery.

 _Whee-thump! Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

 _Choom!_

Trundling of tanks. More chatter of machine guns.

The guns roar in the distance.

Half-naked men with frightening grinning faces roam the hellscape. Red skies. Puddles of blood. And screams. So many screams.

Screams of men.

"Oh sweet mother of God they're killing me! They're killing me! Help me! They're killing me!"

Screams of women.

"Get away from my baby! NO! My baby! Give me back my baby you bloody…"

The sound of knives slicing through flesh.

And, of course, the blood spurting out.

Screams of children.

"Mummy! Mummy! N-!"

The half-crazed screams of roaming demons, dressed in soldiers' uniforms, killing anyone in their way.

Gurgling noises of the people left for dead, throats slit open.

Upper halves of men and women drag themselves across the landscape, screaming.

"Help me! Help me! Someone! Help me!"

"Kill me! Kill me! Please! Stop the pain! Kill me! Pleeeeease! KILL ME!"

Groups of children are run over by tanks, whose undersides and treads are painted red with blood.

Roars of flamethrowers. They sound like angry dragons, hell-bent on burning the crap out of anything in its way.

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat_. _Choom!_

Explosions to the left. A wall of flame rises to the right. Men roast and scream under the blood-red sky.

Burning men dance odd dances in the fire. They sing an odd song of screams.

"Gaargh!"

"Help!"

"Gaah! I'm burning! Help! Help! Help! Somebody help! PLEEASE!"

Other burning men gurgle in nearly animal screams.

A half dead body grabs my leg. Its legs have come off. You realise that it isn't water you are in. it's blood.

"Kuh… kuh… kuh… Kill… muh… me…" it gasps. "puh… lease… Kill… me…"

You scream, and run out of my foxhole.

You run. Run quickly. Away from horrors. The demons scream as they lumber around. You trip over a dead body…

 _Squelch!_

and faceplant into another dead body. A corpse crawls in front of you. Half of an eye falls out of its half-burnt skull. Behind it are a squad of demons. Holding knives covered in blood, they tower over you and the corpse.

Up close, they look like burnt skeletons. Burnt. Charred. grinning.

One hold a flamethrower in its left hand.

"What do you think?" he askeds in a raspy voice not unlike nails scraping on a blackboard, "Do you think he's had enough fun? I've only partly burned him, and you've only partly cut open his belly, and you've only cut half of him off."

"Let's have more fun!" one cackles.

The corpse screams.

"I'm dead! I'm dead! They killed me!" it screams. "My own squad fragged me! Back-stabbing traitors! I have a family back home! My wife's waiting for me! Why did I die!"

The corpse pauses, coughing out a piece of lung, and a few maggots fall out of its eye.

"Why! Why!" it continues. Then it comes up to you, and screams in my face, "Why did I have to die?!"

A stream of maggots falls out of its open mouth.

"Why? Why? Why?" the maggots squeak.

"Why? Why? Why?" the maggots say as they burrow into my flesh.

Then pain. Excruciating pain. You roll wildly on the ground.

And my belly bursts, and you watch my intestines get thrown out.

Out of it rises one of the skeletal demons. It rises and joins its fellows.

"See?" it chatters. "You're just one of us. You're just another ole' killing machine! Killing machine!"

It shoves its hand in the pocket of its shirt, and draws out a necklace made of bloody guts and internal organs.

"Killing machine!" it gibbers. "Killing machine! Killing machine! Just an ole' killing machine!"

Blood and spittle splatter all over you.

The one with a flamethrower walks up.

"Night-night, Danny," it said, grinning like a madman, and turns the flamethrower on. A white light blinds you and you feel as if my eyes are going to melt…

And you wake up gasping, lying on my bunk inside the base. Frank and Arthur are next to you, looking concerned.

"Nightmare again, mate?" askeds Frank. "You've been screaming,"

"Same one?" askeds Arthur. "Y'know, the one when you're tied down and there's boulders falling down, but they take forever to come down?"

You stay silent for a few seconds.

"No," you replied eventually.

"You sure?" asked Frank. "If you've got a problem, go to the counsellor or something."

"You and I both know that crud's a sham," retorted Arthur.

Silence fell for a moment, and Dan chose to break it.

"Remember what they called me out there, in the battlefield? After mowed, like, fifty friggin' coalers down?" you asked. My voice is hoarse. Probably didn't drink enough water.

"Yeah. God of War," replied Frank, smiling.

"You bloody slaughtered them Coaler Fuggers!" said Arthur.

"Yeah," he said, "I guess so."

And then a realisation hits you.

You're short. You've got only one week left on Sarayonar.

You can go home soon.

A new day. Another operation. The APCs trundle out, with some men, including Dan, Frank and Arthur, riding on the roof with their legs crossed, so that if the APC hits a mine

"Less scrub here, more forests," The General said, "Less opportunity for an ambush, less troops, less landmines."

Objective? Clear out the tunnel system nearby, and clear out a hamlet of possible enemy troops.

The clearing out of the hamlet went off without a hitch. Nothing was found after a long search, and the convoy moves out deeper into the forest.

And as per usual, HQ screwed up once again. The minesweeping tank in front does not detonate any mines, so two APCs turn around the bend in the road into the open plains, and the rest of the convoy follows suit. Then, suddenly, there is a ground-shaking roar as landmines explode underneath the first two APCs.

White streaks shoot across the open fields behind you, and hit the last few APCs in the columns. Men on top of the APCs are bucked off. The rattlers' machine guns rotate. The tanks accompanying your formation fire Flechette rounds into the enemy. Flechette rounds work on similar principles as cluster bombs, having thousands of tiny darts packed into a single round. The round bursts at a distance set by the gunner, and releases its deadly payload.

There was a puff of white smoke as a round is fired, then a buzzing noise as the eight thousand flechettes tightly packed into the shell exit the shell at supersonic speeds. Then a white streak hits the tank, and the turret flies off. Orange tracer then comes flying out of the the grass, and rakes the APC you are sitting on from front to back. Ominous shapes marched towards the three from about 3 kilometres away. They heard the gut-wrenching noise of metal hitting metal.

The three of them jumped off, and take cover behind the APC. Dan cursed.

"Get arty on those troops!" he shouted at Arthur, while spraying the enemy machine-gunners with 7.62mm bullets.

"Killer three-four, this is Hunter Four-four. Fire mission grid seven-one-two-six-two-two, direction one-oh-three, distance three-two-oh-oh, HE, thirty enemies, adjust fire!" Arthur says, trembling.

The first of the artillery rounds landed in the fields. Clods of earth rise up where the shells hit.

"Doubtful, seventy left. Correction right two-ten," Arthur said, correcting the inaccurate fire.

More arty whistles down.

 _tiiiuuuuw-koom!_

"Short, ten left. add 400,"

The machine gun keeps firing.

 _Brrrrrrt! Brrrrt! Brrrt! Brrrrrt!_

Arty whistles over.

 _tiiuuuuw-kroom!_

"over, line, drop two hundred!"

 _Wheeeee-thump!_

"Over, five right, left 20, drop 50, fire for effect!"

The arty pumps out shells.

Dan twisted around and put sixteen rounds through a Coaler who nearly managed to kill Arthur.

 _Brrrrrt!_

Dan fired in the other direction, away from Arthur, where Coalers were coming. He could hear the distinctive chatter of M-10 Assault rifles, and occasionally the distinctive crack of a M-10A4 Marksman Carbine.

 _Tiiiiuw-koom! Whee-thump! Whee-krump!_

"End mission, estimated twenty-four casualties," Arthur says after six more rounds.

By now, most of the coalers were lying dead in the ponds and the grass.

A few M-10 rifle shots finish off the ones left.

Over Happy Valley- Rick

The helmet was hot inside, and the new rubber mask made the air smell absolutely horrible. The aircraft zoomed low over the now dark Atilan fields with all the grace of a brick.

Built as a multirole aircraft, the Amphyrade had some semblance of good manoeuvrability when loaded with an air-to-air loadout (perhaps that of a pie flying through the air), but with an air-to-mud loadout it turned into a brick. It was currently loaded with eight 2000lbs bombs, four in the two internal ordnance bays, two on the wings and one on the centreline hardpoint.

Target: a runway in Sector 12, used for mounting bomber flights against the Federation.

Flak of orange burst outside the cockpit, and he could see fiery plumes faraway as aircraft die. To his left, afterburners.

A sudden flash of light surprised him, and he instinctively dived down from 1000 metres to barely 400 metres. A searchlight, of course, had locked on and had lit him up. His aircraft showed up in the dark like a giant dark brick, and green tracers and orange flak opened up all around him.

 _Whoomp! Whoomp! Whoomp!_

 _Rat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat_

ECM on. Ripple quantity two. Interval 60ms. Gunsight to air-to-ground. Fingers on the bomb toggle.

Climb.

Pull on the stick. Pull back. Watch the altitude dial.

"Fox two!" says one of the escorting Amphyrades.

"Guns!"

At six hundred meters he entered level flight.

"Negev Lead, Big Boy here, bogeys, ten o'clock left, 25 miles and closing. Stay alert," says the controller.

"Big boy, Negev lead, copy that. Passing waypoint six," Rick replied.


	2. 2104-2105: the early days

**Part one: The Early Years- 2104 to 2105**

* * *

 **Appendix I: Coalition War Protocol Phase One**

Translated from captured documents captured after the war

Throughout the History of the Great Galactic Coalition of Civilised Life, Phase One has not differed. It has remained the same, from the Annexation of the Temple Planets* or the famed invasion of Atilan. The first protocol is to establish total airspace and space control. All lanes in and out must be secured. No ship must be able to get in or out. Normally, this can be achieved through covert methods. _Geth_ -class boarding pods may be used to hijack enemy space assets, and orbital driller pods should be used to establish an initial foothold on the planet.

The next step is the Covert Raiding** step. In said phase candidates for Shadowplay*** should be analysed. Candidates may include civilians or military members. Preferably those in positions of power, or those with access to resources.

After sufficient resources have been amassed and initial construction has been completed, heavy dropships should be sent in. they should have self-building contained assembly units with them. These devices should be used to build up numbers for a full assault. Enough equipment should be made so that twelve army groups, with two field armies (totalling 160000 combat soldiers each) and two maintenance corps in each group, can be deployed at one time, with three army groups acting as the initial striking power, and four more being deployed in the later stages of the battle. Five army groups act as reserves and fresh units that are ready to be rotated into the combat zone, replacing the active combat unit which is rotated back to reserve duty every half-year. units should be slowly replaced, one by one, so that all units have been returned to reserve, and have been replaced by fresh units in one-eighth. The first to be replaced should be rear-guard units. This should be achieved with strategic airlifts or through tunnel systems. Then, the fresh troops are brought to the front, preferably with tunnels, but road transport or airlifts are acceptable if aerospace superiority has been established. The frontline soldiers are rotated into the rear, until they are completely replaced by fresh troops.

Tunnels should be fifteen metres wide and ten metres high, wide enough to let a tank or IFV pass through. One tank with a column of infantry soldiers, or alternatively, one IFV and a full column of infantry, should pass through. Tests show that 2 cubits^ of tanks and 36 cubits of soldiers can pass through in one hour, and frontline reports state that higher numbers can be achieved.

The IFV of choice is the EóR^^ -17, armed with 9A5 rifled autocannon with a bore of 3 kulleya*^, which can effectively penetrate up to 1.5 kulleya of armour. The MBT of choice is the MA-02. It is armed with a main gun which can penetrate 19 kulleya of armor.

As experience on multiple worlds has shown, these tactics, if correctly applied, can lead to a quick and easy takeover of a planet.

Translator's notes

* The Rigel IV system

** Kulâó Óropínáh, lit. Secret Invasion

*** process for creation of sleeper agents (Páìh otaït, lit. Darkness)

^ one cubit = six things (base six measuring/counting system used)

^^ Êóla Rúlóâ lit. troop crawler

*^ around 18mm

**^ around 22.8cm

* * *

 **The Beginning**

* * *

The Draft Office was quite dusty, and the air reeked of cigarettes. Everything was stained brown. The walls, the faded posters and even the floor. Rick looked over everyone. Dan, the youngest, was sitting on the left. Freddy, the middle child, was to the right.

The year was 2104.

It was fourteen years since the start of the rebellion on the frontier colonies. It was still flaring strong, and wouldn't die down until the end of the year, when the all-out offensive by the Coalition started and the Rebellion called for a truce.

It was four years since the initial attacks made by the Coalition on Earth, in 2100.

And during the dark time that was 2104, the Federation was as war.

And as any parent who sent their children off to war would know, wars are hungry beasts that are always hungry for more.

More men.

More weapons.

More resources.

More death.

"Daniel Raleigh," a mechanical voice said. "Your session is ready."

Suddenly, the wooden bench feels very, very hard. My breathing quickens.

Dan rises, opens a metal door and then enters. The door locks itself.

"Are you enlisting for the army, air force or the navy, Fred?" Rick asked.

"Rick, I couldn't care less. I'm signing for air force." He replied.

"Me too." Rick replied. "Gonna fly one of them gunships, go wreck some tanks."

Andrew shook his head.

"You won't make it to gunships." he said. "Your hand-eye co-ordination is crap. You wouldn't even be able to catch a gym ball if it was flying at yer face!"

"Pessimist," Freddy snorted.

"Coming from the person who said that we would be dead after eight months at the front, that isn't worth much," Rick snapped back. Fred opened his mouth to say a witty comeback, but found that there was (and still is!) no comeback worthwhile enough.

They graduated from the most prestigious school in the galaxy: The Turia Grammar School for boys. Dan broke the running record for the school- the longest sustained run of the courtyard. He lasted one hour, forty-four minutes and fifty-eight-point nought-nine-three seconds, or fifteen laps, beating the previous record holder by twenty minutes. Fred was the dux in bio. Rick was the star of the class pageant. I was the dux in philosophy. Once I graduated, I took a gap year. I was waiting for my siblings to graduate. All of you graduated with honours, and you planned to go to college. Then, the dreaded yellow letter arrived in my mailbox, and it said that Dan, the youngest out of you three, had been selected for the draft for the army.

The boys still remember that day. The four brothers were sitting at the round table, ready for dinner, and their mother was in the kitchen. Then their dad came back from work. The hall door opened and closed, then his footsteps echoed down the hallway. He was walking much slower than usual. When he turned into the dining room from the hall, Andrew was horrified by the look of pure fear that was in his face. Dan thought that he had received a death threat or threatening message. They didn't know how much worse it was. He was carrying a yellow envelope. He stood there, unmoving, just holding that yellow envelope. My mother entered the dining room.

"Hello honey, what's that?" she asked, carrying a saucepan full of soup.

Their father did not answer. He handed the envelope to Dan with trembling hands.

Dan and Freddy peered at the envelope, wondering what it was about. Their father had already opened it, so a piece of white paper was sticking out. Dan took the piece of white paper out.

"Motherfuckers!" shouted Freddy.

"How many times do I have to tell you not to say that?" asked their mother.

Dan stared at it for thirty seconds, then asked his father, "Is this for real?"

He replied, "Yes, it is. I'm so, so sorry."

Dan didn't say anything. he simply tore up the letter and stomped down the hallway towards his room.

"What got them so angry?" asked mother.

The four boys' father turned his head slowly, and faced their mother. His face was full.

"Draft notice. Dan has been drafted into the army, and is to report to the draft office tomorrow." My father replied. "God help his soul."

The saucepan clattered on the floor, spraying hot soup everywhere.

Eventually, all four of them would volunteer, in the hopes that they would be in the same unit.

But fate would intervene, and they would not.

When Andrew, Rick and Freddy told their father about their decision to volunteer, he simply nodded slightly, and wished you luck. It seemed like he knew it was inevitable that they would go to war.

And their father knew too much about war to feel happy about that.

"Rick Raleigh," the mechanical voice said. "Your session is ready."

Rick got up. Freddy muttered something incomprehensible.

Rick walked the five meters towards the door. he breathed shakily. The door was cast-iron, made to open from the outside. It was devoid of decoration. It simply had a handle. No lock, no doorknob, nothing.

 _Well, I've got nothing to lose,_ he thought, and he made the decision to open the door.

His hand moved forward, and it trembled with fear.

His brain seemed to scream, 'Don't do it!'

But he did.

He opened the door.

He opened it, and entered the darkness within.

Eventually, all four of them opened that door and walked into the mouth of the beast called War.

None of them believed that any of them had come out completely the same again.

* * *

 **Tears of Aluminium and Pain**

* * *

 _Heat. Light. Agony._

Dan crawled away from the heat. Away from the smell of smoke. Nothing mattered then except survival.

The APC burned a few meters away. molten metal and plastics streamed down the side of it like tears.

 _Is this death?_ he wondered.

 _Agony. Fear. Darkness._

Blood and tears ran down his face as he dragged himself and his injured leg away from the heat and the acrid smoke. His back felt as if it was on fire.

 _Darkness. Cold. Fear._

Dan dragged himself further into the forest. Nothing mattered but survival.

Darkness…

He realised it was dark, even through his blurry vision. he wiped his eyes of tears. He could see the faint outlines of trees. The ground was littered with dead leaves and twigs. His first practice op had happened.

Damn Saboteurs, Dan thought as he lay there, in the forest. I'd heard stories of boot camps on other planets being sabotaged by anti-war protesters like the group called 'God Bless Murderers' and terrorist cells planted by the Coalition. They never did get as far as Turia though. There was occasionally a terrorist attack in the big cities, but never a sabotage of an actual military exercise.

Dan took stock of the situation. He'd lost his machine gun, but his pistol was still strapped to his side. He had six frag grenades hanging on one side of his belt, and two smoke grenades.

Dan decided to pop a smoke grenade from his pocket. His radio was destroyed, so it wouldn't be of any use. Anyhow, he later found out that the destroyed APC filled the airwaves with chatter, so he couldn't have gotten a message through to HQ. You pop red smoke. There was nothing else to do, so Dan decided to reflect on what had happened so far. The gruelling physical training, and the devil-like instructors. One recruit suffered a mental breakdown during training. He had to be taken away by ambulance, while strapped firmly to a stretcher. Three were weeded out due to failing their physical training. One person committed suicide for some reason. And it had only been a week ago. His name was Bletchley. Hamish Montgomery Bletchley. He was a nice person, and he performed satisfactorily during his physical.

The incidents leading up to his suicide started from his first major screw-up after going through the obstacle course one day. It turned out that he'd lost his dog-tags somehow. Dan and his comrades, including Bletchley, spent hours looking for them. These kinds of screw-ups happened often with Bletchley, and it was not uncommon to see him going to the Replacement Office to get new equipment, clothing or more of something. Stuff just kept disappearing. Then, the instructor got mad. He decided that every time Bletchley lost something, the entire squad would have to suffer- except Bletchley, and the punishment would double every single time he lost another thing. The first time, it was 10 slow push-ups. Then, it increased to twenty. Then forty. By the time the amount reached one hundred, the squad got sick, and decided that they were going to punish Bletchley on their own. Poor kid got beaten up by the rest of the squad. Dan protested, but then they threatened to beat him up as well, so he just shut his mouth.

They forced him to watch while they gagged Bletchley and just beat the living daylights out of him.

They just beat him with rifles and metal bars and soap wrapped in socks and god knows what else.

After the war he would still remember the sickening crunch as they broke his nose, and seeing blood spurt everywhere. He would still remember hearing his muffled screams and shouts of pain.

Bletchley was never the same again. Sure, he didn't lose anything, and he became the model soldier, and was praised by the drill instructors, but he was… affected by the beating.

Strange things started happening to him. He stopped eating as much, and he started showing signs of going insane. He talked in his sleep. He started talking to his rifle. He also became more withdrawn. After the group was moved into divisional barracks, he would sleep away from everyone else. He would sleep at the end of the room, where no-one else was due to how it was too cold during the windy nights.

Then, one day, when the division was supposed to be asleep, he got up, and went into the bathroom, carrying his rifle. Then, he loudly shouted the Federation Army's marching song. He loaded live ammunition into it. He cleaned it, and then it happened.

The drill instructor entered the room. He said that he would put Bletchley on fatigue duty for the next month if he didn't shut up. Then, Bletchley came out of the bathroom carrying the rifle. The drill instructor ordered him to surrender the rifle and put his hands in the air, and he shouted for the MPs. Bletchley didn't falter. He walked into the middle of the room, raised the rifle and simply shot the instructor in the head. He must have loaded a stolen high-explosive round or a canister round from the armoury, because it literally blew the instructor's head off. Then, he shot himself. He did all this when everyone in the room was wide awake.

Everyone saw their heads getting blown apart.

Everyone saw the blood spurting everywhere.

Everyone was covered in viscera, be it blood or bits of brain or eyes. One person got a shard of a tooth in his arm.

Everyone was horrified by what Bletchley did.

It was found that some members of another squad had stolen Bletchley's belongings, then had put them back in his quarters because they wanted to fool around.

They got a court-martial, but were acquitted.

Even more horrible was the speed at which the corpses were disposed of. The next morning, the corpses and the bloodstains were gone, and the cleaners were finishing bleaching the room.

There was a funeral for the drill sergeant, but not Bletchley for some reason. Dan assumed that his remains had been taken back to his home for burial there.

Dan still wonders, why did he kill himself? Why did he blow his own head off? If he hadn't killed himself, would he have been a good soldier?

And now, after 32 years of war, would he still have been alive?

Dan then heard an APC trundle up, breaking the tranquil silence of the forest.

"Who popped smoke?" someone shouted.

"Me…" Dan croaked, weakly.

"Where are you?" the person asked.

"Here!" Dan said, slightly louder than before. "And Just Fucking Hurry!"

A man's head broke through the undergrowth. Thankfully, it wasn't a terrorist, but the face of Sergeant Kim.

"What in fuck happened to you?" he asked. "Your back is a fucking mess!"

"APC blew up. Shrapnel. Motherfucking terrorist cunts," Dan replied weakly. He tried to stand, but collapsed, exhausted, pitching head-first into a pile of leaves.

 _At least it wasn't a rock..._ he thought.

He'd never felt so weak, and his back still burned with pain. Dan felt cold. He thought it was odd, because he'd been lying down in the sun a few seconds ago. Dan had never felt cold on Turia, where the seasons are always over 20 degrees Celsius. His leg felt numb. He heard the sarge shout something sounding like 'shee!' and then calling for a stretcher and a medic, and people thrashing through the undergrowth, and other indiscernible shouts. Then, Dan lost consciousness.

* * *

 **A Warm Welcome**

* * *

Fred woke up inside the C-21 as it approached the Forward Airbase at the front lines. Anti-Aircraft fire buffeted the aircraft. he could see white lines of tracer and black smudges in the sky outside the window- this was his first experience with anti-aircraft fire during the day, but not the last. The plane's turbines roared loudly, and made the aircraft shake. Outside, he could see the green, rolling plains, and the dark green coral forests of Atilan.

He couldn't believe that he was there, on Atilan. He couldn't believe that he'd survived the training camp on Turia (which, according to a letter sent by Dan, was 'soft' and 'was absolutely nothing compared to what we went through') and getting so many operations and injections. It was inconceivable that the entire training process took less than a month due to the simulations they put him through. He couldn't believe that his ageing process was slowed, and it was even harder so to believe that he'd qualified to fly a gunship.

Freddy found it hardest to believe that he had reached Atilan, seventy-five light-years away from Turia, in one hour. One hour! Five minutes to board, fifteen minutes to get into the atmosphere, fifteen minutes getting through the warp relay, twenty minutes re-entering the atmosphere of Atilan, and five minutes to disembark after you arrived.

Looks like the veterans were right. The planet's day lasts for four earth years, so on one side, it rains perpetually and is very dark, and on the other, it is bright and sunny. And dry. The dust gets everywhere, in the guns and in the air. And when the officials come over it gets into their suits. To put it in the views of John Smith, a Stormbringer super-soldier sent here five years ago, at the beginning of the war in 2100, the Federation ruled the day, but the Coalition ruled the night. And indeed, it was. Thankfully, Fred had been deployed on the side where it was still day.

The intercom turns on.

"Good Morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. You are on flight U.R. Deadmeat from The World to Hell. We are on final approach to Hell, so say your last-minute prayers, piss your pants, stow your belongings, and do whatever the hell greenies like you fellows need to get prepared for your two-year stay at the Hotel Death." The pilot said. "We've just opened a can of whoop-ass heavy shit, so when we touch down, get out immediately or you may find your body parts scattered across the runway, courtesy of our friendly hosts, Mr Eighty-Deuce, Mrs Quad Thirty and their delightful son, Sammy the Surface-to-Air Missile. I've heard they give warm welcomes. so warm in fact, they'll melt off your tiny dicks and burn your balls into ash."

"Well, she's an optimist, isn't she?" Fred told Rick.

He remains silent.

"Come on, Close Air Support isn't that bad. You can still wreck some tanks, and you fly the same aircraft as I do! A gunship! What you wanted! You don't have to lug twenty kays of crap around!"

"You really don't understand, do you?" he said, with a blank expression.

A shell burst close by, making the plane rock.

"Understand what?" he asked.

"I wanted to get into gunships to protect Danny." He replied. "I wanted to make sure that he gets through this goddamn hell. I want to see him live, have children and die peacefully with a loving family, not after being disembowelled by some Coalition creep. I want at least one of us to get back to momma alive and well, even after fighting a war that will taint our souls, and rip our innocence away from us. Now, he's on some hellhole a thousand light-years from here."

"Oh. I didn't know that. Sorry."

The plane's big rear door opened.

Something buzzed, and a light turned from red to green.

A sergeant stood at the door.

"Alright, people!" he shouted over the wind. "We are approaching the destination under heavy fire! The instant the plane stops, I want you out that door! The more time we spend here, the more chance there is that the plane gets fragged! I have a wife and three children to get back to, so move out quickly!"

The plane approached a runway which Fred could see outside the window. Harsh sunlight pierced the last remnants of his sleepiness. Anti-aircraft shells burst outside.

The plane touched down on the runway. It bumped once, twice, then stopped.

The sergeant ran to the door.

"Go, go, go! Get out of here before they zero in on us!" the sergeant screamed.

Everyone scrambled out the door. Fred followed the rest, but he tripped over something on the floor of the plane. A loose M-10 rifle clip.

"What do you think you're doing?" the sergeant shouted. "Get out of here now, before the mortar fire hits-"

Fred still remembered this moment, thirty-nine years later. To him, that hit from a mortar was the most powerful thing he had ever seen. Time seemed to slow down as he scrambled out the door. A black… thing dropped from the sky, screaming like a devil from the darkest depths of hell. The sergeant looked at him with a blank expression. He leaped out and scrambled away, just before an explosion rocked the plane. The left wall of the plane literally tore itself apart. Then, the right wall disintegrated into a million pieces. Fred felt himself being flung to the right.

When his vision cleared, he got up and looked around at what happened to the plane. The aluminium-carbon-plastic composite skin has been shredded. There was a crater in the ground, and burning petroleum was strewn everywhere. _Where had the sergeant gone?_ He thought.

Fred couldn't see him.

Then Fred saw the sergeant.

Or rather, what was left of him.

What remains of him is under a large piece of shrapnel.

He was breathing laboriously.

"Huhh… You… damn idiot…" he gasped with his last breaths. "My… wife… needs… me… I… you…"

His voice faded, and a strange look came into his eyes. His eyes seemingly glazed over with glass film, and he died with a strange, fixed expression, his facial muscles contorted with pain. Fred was then conscious of someone's arm on my shoulder.

"He's dead, son," the person said. His English was accented. you thought that he might have been from was from one of the Rusbloc colonies, but for the four years Fred knew the man he never really got to know him.

"At least he's gone to a better place than this," he said, continuing.

The mortar fire had moved on, and some explosions could be heard going off a long distance away, near the perimeter.

"Who're you?" Fred asked the man.

"Captain Edward Yellin, but just call me Edward. 15th Aerial Hussars, or the Slavic Death squadron" he replied. The look of utter confusion on Fred's face led him to give a more conventional name. "15th Army Support."

"Pilot Officer Freddy Raleigh. Assigned to 15th Army Support."

"Well then. You have a brother who goes by the name of Richard, correct?"

"Yes. Everybody calls him Rick. As a matter of fact, where is he? He ran off during the bombardment."

"Ah. Yes. He went to the mess. Come with me. We have a little time before our first mission's briefing. Which is in…"

Edward checks his watch. He seemed strangely relaxed for a man standing in the middle of a warzone, with mortar shells screaming down, and the scorched remains of a plane around him.

"Thirty minutes," he said emphatically. "Now, normally you'd get some time to settle in, but your plane is a day late and we've suffered quite a few losses. Chop-chop. Let's go get ourselves a drink."

And so, Fred's first day of war began. Unfortunately, this would not be his last day. This was simply a warm welcome.

* * *

 **First time up!**

* * *

In the briefing room, Rick sat in the second row from the front. His hands were twitching nervously. He remembered how Andrew told him not to be afraid, but, well, he couldn't help but quiver in anticipation for his first combat operation.

"Listen up, ladies and gentlemen!" the C.O. shouted. "Most of you are new here, except for those of you in the Slavic Death Squadron."

When he was met with confused faces, he elaborated.

"15th army co-operation, or at least what remains of it after their most recent mission,"

He continued, pacing around the podium.

"So, that should be Andrei, Edward, Sofia, Natasha, Hans and Grisha."

His words were met with slow nods from six people in the first row.

"As you should know, we have several squadrons based here. Four, to be exact."

A hand shoots up.

"Sir, if there are four squadrons, why are there only six people who are experienced?"

The colonel nodded. "Good question. This is because of our overwhelming losses in the last month. As you may know, our base is near an important choke point for Coalition convoys entering and exiting this region. Our job is to interdict those convoys, and destroy them, and occasionally we go and support the infantry. Unfortunately, we have been suffering heavy losses due to missile emplacements and better anti-aircraft defences used by the enemy. We cannot afford to pull out of this area. If we withdraw, enemy forces will pour into this area and retake our recent gains in the area."

Rick's hand shoots up.

"What aircraft are we flying, sir?" he asked.

"I was getting to that." The colonel replied. "You will be flying the AH-98D Cobra V. The helicopter has contra-rotating propellers, and no tail rotor. This means that you can take hits in the tail unit and get out alive, but it does not mean that you are invincible. There is no armour on the 'D' variant. From what I have heard, the 'E' variant has plenty of armour and better guns, but handles like a heavy tank. The Cobra V moves like a tortoise, but turns relatively tightly, in a small radius due to the nature of the contra-rotating rotors. It is equipped with dual 30mm cannons. Unlike the 'E' variant, the cannons are mounted in the nose, and are flexible. You will be using high-explosive incendiary armour-piercing rounds. Don't asked me how they work, because I don't know. The only thing I know is that they can turn a brand-new tank into a smouldering wreck within ten rounds, or a one-second burst, if you are bang on target on the turret, or hit the fuel tanks. You will have 300 rounds per gun, meaning that you have thirty seconds worth of firing. Regarding the guns, the advice is to fire by tapping the firing button, and not to hold it, since holding it will simply expend my ammunition before you can properly utilise it. Your guns will be complemented by eight air-to-ground guided missiles, but people tend not to use them, since the tanks and vehicles used by the enemy have a wide array of countermeasures. These days, we use them as anti-personnel weapons by converting them to cluster bombs. If you want to know how, ask the Ordies, I ain't got time for that."

You can't help but yawn while you listen to the colonel drone on.

"You will also have a full load of 80 rockets, optimised as anti-personnel rounds. They are equipped with HE warheads, so they are ineffective against tanks and bunkers, and other heavily armoured targets,"

"Is that all, sir?" someone in the back row asked, bored.

"No. Today," the colonel said, taking a pointer, "You will be accompanying our infantry on a mission, and provide close-air support along with the jets. Your aircraft have enough fuel for six hours, but there are constant tanker flights coming in, so you have an effectively unlimited loiter time. You are only limited by the amount of damage you take and your endurance."

The pointer hit a point on the large map behind the podium.

"Nal'irathika. Biggest coalition stronghold in the area, and a major supply depot for the Coalition," the colonel said. The veterans of the 15th shift uncomfortably in their seats. "The 15th Army Co-operation has been near this place before, on their previous mission. The 18th, 26th and 33rd Army Co-operation squadrons were wiped out here, and you stand a good chance of being wiped out too. From what I have heard, there are several dangers associated with the area. These include enemy fighter cover, heavy fire from flak and many, many missiles. These enemy soldiers are not human. They are aliens. They are thirsty for our blood, and will do absolutely anything to kill us. To them, we are the alien invaders. To them, we have come from space to defile their territory. I am sure you'd think that too, if a bunch of aliens came to your homeworld and started killing everybody."

The colonel stops, and looks around the room.

"Now, I know that this sounds hopeless. but it's all for the greater good. by gaining this stronghold, we'll have control over most of the area, and the grunts will have an easier time taking this planet, and we can get the fuck off this hellhole quicker," he says.

"Fuck this shit, this is a fucking suicide mission, not an attack," someone next to you mutters.

"Ok. Remember the radio call-signs of the infantry and the supporting forces. The controller's callsign is Bison five-oh-three. your radio callsign is Kestrel-202. The callsign of the 113th Cavalry, who are the tanks, is Bronco one-thirteen. The callsign of the 16th mechanized infantry, the grunts attacking the compound, is Puma sixteen. The callsign of the escorting fighters is Eagle three-oh-four. The callsign of the fighters assigned to ground attack is Hawk Eleven-sixteen. The callsigns for the other helicopter squadrons are Helix one-five and Alligator one-seventeen. The airspace will be crowded, because there will be a total of twenty-four helicopters operating in the area at one time. Understood?"

"Yes sir," the pilots groaned.

"Alright. Remember: this isn't a one-hour training flight. If my helicopter seems even slightly off, then turn back. If there is a problem, a slight one like a dial not displaying properly, or a serious one like engine power loss of more than 20%, turn back. If you don't think that you can stay awake and well enough to do an entire seven-hour shift, then turn back."

The colonel puts the pointer down.

"Now get to the choppers." The colonel said. "God speed."

A few minutes later, Rick found himself whisked out into the airfield. Jets, or fast-movers as the more experienced people called them, were taking off from the airfield as he walked towards his helicopter. Fifteen Amphyrades, an entire squadron, were taxiing out to the runway. Their dual engines roared and spat streams of smoke as they took off, laden with bombs, missiles and rocket pods. A larger cargo aircraft came in to land at another runway. The airfield is a flurry of activity, with ammunition, bombs and missiles being carted everywhere. It ranges from rocket pods and High-Explosive Incendiary Armour Piercing (HEIAP) rounds and cluster munitions for Cobra gunships to racks of 500-pound bombs for the B-16 Swallows stationed at the base.

Rick walked across the base. The sky is blue, and there isn't a cloud anywhere. This was both good and bad. It meant that he could see ground targets clearly, but he would have nowhere to hide in the case of an attack. A tousle-headed fitter stood by his helicopter. Freddy is already there, in front of the helicopter.

"Freddy? What're you doing here? Get to your own helicopter!" Rick shouted.

"Idiot. Did you even read the list of pilot and gunner pairs in the mess?" he said calmly, while inspecting a belt filled with HEIAP ammunition. "Well, mother said that you never really liked reading. I guess that's true."

"Bloody he-" Rick's protest was cut short by Freddy.

"Anyhow, we've been posted together," he continued. "Deal with it. If you want to complain, te-."

"Whatever," Rick groaned, cutting off Freddy. "Just pilot the darn kite without crashing it, and I'll be a happy man. Let's get going."

About twenty minutes later, Rick and Freddy were in the air, flying to the objective. There were six helicopters from his squadron, arranged in two flights of three helicopters. The intercom buzzed.

"Hello, hello. Kestrel Lead to Kestrel flight. Come in, Kestrel flight." Edward said. "Number off, one to six, and provide status report. Kestrel Leader, reporting in. all systems go, over."

"Kestrel two here. All systems active, over," said Natasha. "Good to be going again, Edward."

"Kestrel three here. All systems go, over," you say.

"Kestrel four here. Engines not performing well. Engines only providing 60% thrust." Grisha said. "Permission to head home for equipment check and possible repair."

"Roger, Kestrel four, break formation and head home." Yellin replied calmly.

"Roger. Kestrel four heading home, over."

the helicopter breaks off the formation.

The rest of the helicopter crews number off. They crews were accounted for. The radio crackled, and a message from command came in.

"Kestrel lead, this is Blue Bison. Come in, Kestrel lead," the radio crackled.

"Blue Bison, Kestrel Leader reporting." Replied Yellin.

"Kestrel, Eagle three-oh-four unable to make rendezvous at assigned time. Repeat: Eagle three-oh-four unable to make rendezvous at assigned time. Eagle will arrive at rendezvous one hour late. Confirm message received, and state course of action."

Freddy looked at Rick, eyes wide open in suprise.

"What the-!" he was cut off by another transmission.

"Kestrel Leader here. Confirming message received. Kestrel will proceed to target. Advise Eagle to do the same, over."

"Roger, Kestrel Leader. Bison out."

The radio crackles, and clicks. Silence falls.

"Kestrel leader to Kestrel Flight, change of plans," Yellin said calmly, as if it was something minor, like a slight bruise from hitting a wall. "We will proceed into enemy territory. Be cautious of enemy aircraft. Refer to enemy aircraft as bandits. Move out."

The helicopters thundered over the plains, heading to Nal'irathika.

* * *

 **pointless deaths**

* * *

The first sign of bandits came about fifteen minutes before the escorting fighters arrived at the objective at Nal'irathika. The formation had split up, and each helicopter crew was attacking of its own accord. A gunner in Kestrel Four saw the fighters first.

"Kestrel four here," she said through the radio. "There are nine bogeys, coming in from bearing two-two-three heading southwest, in three groups of nine."

Rick and Fred were strafing an enemy position at the time, so they had no time to look up at the sky. The first warning sign of the presence of fighters was a high-pitched whine which could be heard over the sound of Rick's radio, which then turned into a scream as the fighters got closer. Then, the fighters streak past, emitting blue exhaust. Time seemed to slow as they swoop past him. They were oddly shaped. They had sharp noses, and two large engines. They have twin-boom tails and swept wings. At the last moment, Rick realised that they are enemy fighter aircraft, and not the photoreconnaissance variant either. Rick remembers recognising them as Filament-Ds.

 _shit!_ thought Freddy.

"Fuck! Alligator three, break, break, break!" someone shouts over the radio. A blue streak of smoke zooms across the sky, and smashes into A helicopter on the other side of the base. The helicopter doesn't spiral down or disintegrate into a million pieces like in the movies. There is a small explosion, and the helicopter falls like a stone. Bits of its tail fall off. It plummets down from 100 feet above ground. The helicopter crashes into the ground, upside down.

You hear screams of fear and anger on the radio, as well as shouts.

"Helix nine, you got a bandit on your tail!"

"Fuck!"

"Fuck! Help me! Somebody, fucking help me! Hel-"

Helicopters fall from the sky, some spiralling down, some simply falling upside down, others trailing black smoke. They fall from the sky, like birds shot down by hunters. The fighters make another pass, firing more missiles.

"Shit Shit Shit Shit SHIT!"

"Mummy!"

"Missiles incoming, Alligator five, brea- oh no! No! No! No!" - _wham!_ went a missile in the background.

"FUCK! Oh Jesus please no!"

Men and women scream, trapped in their flaming metal coffins plummeting down from the sky.

"Lord in heaven, please let me get home alive! Please!"

"Mother! Help!"

"Oh god I'm on fire! MOTHERFUCKERS!"

"No! No! No! Please, no!"

Freddy screamed and tore his headphones off. It was too horrible to listen to the screams of dying pilots and gunners.

"Freddy, look! Over there!" shouts Rick, pointing.

He looked at where he is pointing. The familiar shapes of F/A-24 Amphyrades. You peer more closely. There are twelve of them, in three flights of four.

The flights split up into pairs.

"This is Eagle three-oh-four, come in, helicopter squadrons. Alligator, Kestrel, Helix, do you copy?"

"This is Kestrel Two, you're too late," you say. "Kestrel squadron is nearly gone. I don't know about the other squadrons."

"Kestrel Leader here," Yellin said. Somehow, he survived the barrage of missiles. "Alligator flight is unresponsive, and Helix squadron has three remaining Helos. We have four. The enemy fighters seem to be gone, but we would appreciate air cover."

"Roger that, Kestrel leader. Eagle out."

* * *

The attack was a strategic success. Nal'irathika was no longer occupied by the enemy, and it was now a Federation holding. But to the pilots? It was a Charlie-fox, a euphemism for an army term meaning 'self-destructive operation'. Most of the pilots from each squadron had been downed in the skies above Nal'irathika. You thought that the air campaign over Nal'irathika was a waste of human life. one hundred pilots and gunners had gone out in fifty helicopters over twelve hours. seventy-four pilots and gunners in thirty-seven helos reached their destination, and only twenty-three pilots and gunners made it back to base from the attack. some Helos had limped home with the rear cockpit (the gunner's cockpit) drenched in blood.

When you got back, Rick looked at Freddy grimly, and said that he was going to, 'get a fucking drink at the mess' and asked if Fred wanted to come along.

He nodded, and walked off to the mess with Rick. In the bar, people congratulated you on getting back alive, but it didn't feel right to him.

That day, when it was night-time on earth and everybody was sleeping, Freddy couldn't sleep. He could keep hearing the screams and shouts of the pilots dying. My bed bucked like the helicopter had during the day. Fred stepped out into the sunlight, and watched a few aircraft fly out. Amphyrades. When he saw them, his mind wandered back to the screams of the doomed pilots and gunners and how it happened because the escorts were late.

Two hundred and forty-four… you thought. Two hundred and forty-four dead, and I didn't even know their names.

You stare into the distance, thinking about the two hundred and forty-four. What would their mothers feel when they got the dreaded holomessage saying that their sons and daughters had died in battle? What if my mother received one of those holomessage?

It hurts, thinking about the two hundred and forty-four dead pilots' families and loved ones. It hurts to think about how devastated they will be when the get one of the dreaded emails.

"Can't go to sleep, kid?" someone askeds from the shadows.

"Wha?" you exclaim, turning around. "Jesus, Yellin! You scared me! Warn me before you do something like that again, alright?"

"Ok then," he replied. He takes a sip from a small bottle. "Here. Take a sip of this. It's just vodka mixed with some orange juice. It lessens the pain."

"How do you know abou-"

"Just shut up and take a sip. It helps deal with the pain."

You take the bottle, and take a sip. It has a burning sensation as it passes down my throat, and you want to gag.

"Wow." You cough. "Strong."

Edward nods, and takes the bottle back.

"You get used to it," he replied, taking a sip. "You get used to people dying out here too. I was like you once. My friend and I were in the Air Force until about a month ago. We were in different helicopters. Today's attack wasn't the first attack on Nal'irathika."

"Not the first?" you asked. "How do you know?"

"My god, did you listen to the C.O. at the briefing?" he exclaims. "He said explicitly: 'the 15th Army Cooperation squadron has been here before.' We've been out here for almost 4 years now. Our previous mission was a month ago. Before that, we'd been conducting routine convoy interdiction missions. The mission to Nal'irathika a month ago was our first operation with the infantry."

"Wait, how long have you been out here?" you asked.

"Three years and five months."

"That's long."

"No, it isn't. some of us have been here five years, and we're never going home."

"Why?"

"A tour of duty is two years, right? You probably won't even get through. Once you sign up, you're here for life, which most likely will until you die. No-one who came here at the start of the war will make it out alive, or whole. Everyone has been scarred in this fucking hellhole. The people going out or coming back in? Most are either some Rear Echelon Motherfuckers sending us to our deaths or Fucking New Guys coming to die here. The rest are just wrecks of their former selves, who find that civvy life is just too weird to handle. And don't get me started on the Combat Junkies! Poor little sonsabitches."

"Don't be so pessimistic! We outnumber the enemy a million to one! A million to fucking ONE! How in fuck couldn't we win on this shitty planet?"

"That's what happened in the Winter War. And remind me, who won? The Finnish, that's who. All the men, guns and tanks didn't do them rosyjscy bitches much good."

"We've gained ground! We are overrunning the enemy! We still outnumber them!"

"Same deal with the Arab-Israeli and the first two world wars. The Arabs outnumbered the Israelis, and lost. The Germans gained a lot of ground in world war two, most of western Europe. And they lost."

"What happened at Nal'irathika? There were only eight people alive who were previously in the 15th, judging by what I saw. How were forty pilots and gunners killed in one day?"

"There were eight survivors able to fight, not alive. thirty men returned, but only eight of us were healthy enough to keep flying. The rest were dismembered, driven insane or had died. Some of the gunners flew back the aircraft on their own, with a bloody corpse lying next to them."

"Wh-what happened?"

"We ran into fighters, like we did today. Six fighters made low passes against our helicopters, shooting down four with missiles. The fighters ran off after them. Then nine other fighters engaged us. Most of us went down then. Then, the escort came back, and chased them away. The attack was a failure because we couldn't provide enough air support with only one helicopter with a complete crew. That's partly why eighteen helicopters were used today."

"What's the other reason?"

"Tac-com is made up of idiotic officers who haven't even flown a helicopter before, except in flight school."

An Amphyrade streaked over Dan's head. You look up, and stare into the heavens. Hearing the Amphyrade fly out into the sky reminds you of the dead pilots. Their screams of horror, fear and sorrow echo in my head.

"Caught the stare, haven't you?" Yellin asked. He seems sympathetic, but it's hard to tell, because he speaks in a calm voice most of the time.

"The stare?" Fred asked.

"The thousand-yard-stare. You've got it now. Everyone catches it, except the Rear-Eche- …"

His spate of profanity is cut off by the ringing note of a klaxon.

"Squadrons, scramble! Incoming enemy raid! Repeat: Squadrons, scramble! Incoming enemy raid!" a man shouts over the intercom.

The Klaxon blares. There is a flurry of activity near where the fighter aircraft are. Air-to-air missiles are wheeled out. Anti-aircraft guns swivel to face the direction where the enemy is coming from. Missile batteries are readied. Men run towards bunkers, and some towards aircraft. Ammo and air-to-air missiles are wheeled out to the fighters, and the big, wide-bellied bombers slowly taxi out near another runway. Their wings are at the back of the aircraft, and face forwards, so they look like long-necked geese when they take to the air. They are painted blue on their undersides, but have Adaptive Camouflage Surfaces on their upper surfaces, which actively camouflage the aircraft depending on the terrain it is on using cameras and screens. Other aircraft are not equipped with it because it is very heavy.

"Oh, yes, and I wanted to tell you one thing," said Edward.

"What? Is it good or bad?" you asked.

"You're from Turia, aren't you?"

"Yes, I was born there."

"We're getting rotated there. Apparently High-com has a surprise in store for us there."

"Oh. Ok."

Edward sighs.

"Cheer up, comrade," he said, patting you on the back. "We don't lose so many of our own all the time. Perhaps next time you'll be able to do something with the weapons you have."

"I hope so," Fred replied. "I hope so…"


End file.
